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TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 



BY 



WILLIAM A. MOWKY, 

For Twenty Years Senior Principal of the English 
AND Classical School, Providence, R. I. 



t> ,■- 



BOSTON : 

NEW ENGLAND PUBLISHING CO. 

1885. 



.H7 



Copyright bt 

THE N. E. PUBLISHING CO. 

1885. 



DEDICATIOIsr 



rpO the three thousand boys whom I have had the 
•*- pleasure of calling "my pupils" during the 
last thirty-eight years, especially to the two thou- 
sand who, within the past twenty-one years, have 
been members of The English and Classical School, 
Providence, E. I., — of all of whom I have the 
most pleasant recollections, and to all of whom, 
scattered, as they are, over the whole world, I 
desire to extend the most cordial and friendly 
greeting, — this little book is respectfully dedicated 
by their friend, 

WILLIAM A. MOWRY. 



[lil] 



PEEFACE 



THIS little volume has grown out of the practical 
necessities of the school-room. During the 
past twenty years daily contact with from two 
hundred to three hundred boys has often brought 
the opportunity, and sometimes the necessity, for 
special moral and practical lessons not found in 
the regular lines of study. 

It has been the author's intention, whenever these 
occasions have presented themselves, to frame 
truth in such a setting as to make it attractive and 
effective. There is a way of presenting a subject 
which obscures, confuses, and repels, utterly failing 
to win or convince; and there is another method 
which is agreeable and attractive, and which seldom 
fails to produce the desired effect. The occasion 
has much to do with the choice of the subject, and 
the circumstances largely govern the form of pres- 
entation. 



VI PREFACE. 

Xo logical order or philosophical arrangement, 
and no special range of subjects has been followed, 
since the talks were given as occasion demanded or 
opportunity offered. 

Young people excel in drawing inferences, and, 
ordinarily, there is little need to append to a story, 
after the manner of the ancient moralists, — Hcec 
fahula docet. 

Some of these talks have appeared from time to 
time in The Journal of Education, several of them 
in The Congregationalist, and two or three others 
in different publications ; the remainder have never 
before been printed. 

Should the book aid any teacher in his efforts to 
present truth effectively to the young, especially 
should it serve to encourage any of the pupils in 
the schools to seek a higher life and a nobler ambi- 
tion, the writer will feel amply repaid for his labor. 

W. A. M. 

Dorchester, Mass., Jan. 1, 1885. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

I. Concentration of Mind 9 

II. Concentration: How to acquire it . 16 

III. A Purpose in Life 25 

ly. " Black the Heels of your Boots " . 35 

Y. Dogs and Boys 41 

YI. Elements of Success 57 

VII. Wliat shall Boys do? 69 

YIII. President Garfield's Election and 

Death 81 

IX. President Garfield's Election and 

Death, Concluded 88 

X. What the Waterfalls said to me . . 98 

XI. Be Exact in Thought and Word . . 113 

XII. The Basket of Chip-Dirt .... 120 
XIII. Wendell Phillips: The Lesson of his 

Life 127 

[vii] 



Vm CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

XIV. The Phonograph 137 

XV. The Two Portraits 142 

XVI. The Election of President .... 148 

XVII. What do the Boys read? .... 163 

XVIII. The Presidents of the United States 170 
XIX. Pacts and Dates in the Lives of 

Distinguished Men 180 

XX. Two Yankee Boys 189 

XXI. The Boyhood of Dr. Eliphalet Nott 199 

XXII. Practical Christianity 206 

XXIII. Habits of Industry 210 

XXIV. A Lesson from History . . . . . 227 
XXV. What Geometry will do for a Boy . 243 

XXVI. The Fall of Kichmond 250 

XXVII. The End of the Year.— A Christ- 
mas Scene 259 



TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 



I. 

CONCENTRATION OF MIND. 

"I T is snowing this morning, for the first 
time this fall. That is a reminder 
that winter, with its long evenings and 
keen, bracing air, is near at hand. This 
is the season for hard study. Now, I have 
something to suggest to you, this morning, 
boys. Of late I have often heard some of 
you say, " I cannot get my lessons ; they 
are too hard ; they take too much time ; 
I have to study three and four hours out 
of school." In these cases I have observed 
what these lessons were, and have gener- 
ally been satisfied that they were not too 
long nor too difficult. In most instances the 
[9] 



10 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

same lessons were well learned by some 
members of the class, without unusual or 
unreasonable hours of study. I wish to 
tell you, therefore, how you may get these 
lessons without spending too much time in 
studying them. 

It is related of a distinguished man, one 
of the first scholars of America at the pres- 
ent day, that, when he was fitting for col- 
lege, he found himself spending two hours 
a day in preparing his Latin lesson. He 
determined that he would get that lesson in 
an hour and fifty minutes. The next day, 
and subsequent days, when he sat down to 
learn his Latin, he bent every energy to 
accomplish it in the shortest possible time. 
He found by daily trials that he was getting 
it in an hour and forty-five minutes, and 
that the time required was growing daily a 
little less. Concentrating all his powers 
upon the task, day by day, he soon found 



CONCENTRATION OF MIND. 11 

himself spending only an hour and a half 
upon it, then fifteen minutes less, and soon 
mastering it in an hour; and, continuing his 
efforts, within a few months the daily lesson 
could be learned in less than half an hour ! a 
thing absolutely impossible with his habits 
of study at the beginning of his efforts. 
But, meantime, he had done something 
more than to get his Latin lesson daily in 
a shorter period of time. He had acquired 
a different habit of study. He had learned 
something of the value of the j^oiver of con- 
centration. His philosophical mind formu- 
lated it in this way : " The acquisition of 
power is of more value than the acquisition 
of knowledge. ^^ 

Many years ago, in Northern Massachu- 
setts, a young lad of about fifteen years had 
acquired such a habit of intense concentra- 
tion of mind that he won a boyish wager 
with some of his school-fellows in this 



12 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

wsij. Seven long stanzas of poetry were 
given him to learn tn twenty minutes, while 
the boys were permitted to use all their 
efforts to disturb and disconcert him, except 
they were not to touch him. He com- 
menced, and they kept up a most unearthly 
din about his ears; but all to no purpose. 
He was totally oblivious to anything going 
on around him. His whole mind was con- 
centrated upon the task of committing to 
memory those verses, and before the twenty 
minutes were up he had them so thoroughly 
fixed that he could recall them with ease 
years afterward. This lad was the Hon. 
George S. Boutwell, afterward governor of 
Massachusetts, secretary of the Massachu- 
setts Board of Education, United States 
senator, and secretary of the United States 
treasury. 

Horace Greeley was remarkable for his 
power of concentration of mind. It is stated 



CONCENTRATION OF MIND. 13 

that when an immense procession, with bands 
of music, was passing up Broadway, the 
streets lined with people to the number of 
many thousands, he would sit down upon 
the steps of the Astor House, and, using the 
top of his hat for a writing-table, he would 
write out in full one of those strong, terse, 
pungent editorials which rendered the Trib- 
une so famous during his palmy days. 

I have heard another incident in relation 
to his power of writing under disturbing cir- 
cumstances. An article in the paper had 
given great offence to a certain gentleman, 
who immediately upon reading it went 
straight down the street, and calling at the 
office of the Tribune^ inquired for the ed- 
itor. He was shown into a little seven-by- 
nine sanctum, where Mr. Greeley sat, with 
his head down close to his paper, scribbling 
away at a two-forty rate. The angry man 
began by asking if this was Mr. Greeley. 



14 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

"Yes, sir. What do you want?" says the 
editor, quickly, without once looking up 
from his paper. The irate visitor then be- 
gan to use his tongue, with no reference to 
the rules of propriety, good breeding, or 
reason. Meantime, Mr. Greeley continued 
to write. Page after page was dashed ofl' 
in the most impetuous style, with no change 
of features, and without paying the slight- 
est attention to the visitor. Finally, after 
about twenty minutes of the most impas- 
sioned scolding ever poured out in an edit- 
or's office, the angry man became disgusted, 
and abruptly turned and walked out of the 
room. Then, for the first time, Mr. Greeley 
quickly looked up, rose from his chair, and 
slapping the gentleman familiarly on his 
shoulder, in a pleasant tone of voice said : 
" Don't go, friend ; sit down, sit down, and 
free your mind ; it will do you good, — you 
will feel better for it. Besides, it helps me 



CONCENTEATION OF MIJ^^D. 15 

to think what I am to write about. Don't 
go." 

Sir Isaac Newton, near the close of his 
life, said to a friend, "If I have accom- 
plished anything above the average of men, 
it has been by the power of patient work." 

If your school proves of any value to you, 
boys, it will be, not by giving you an oppor- 
tunity to acquire knowledge, but to acquire 
;power by daily labor. And this will come 
to you mainly from your acquiring, by dint 
of dogged will and determination, the power 
of concentration. It will give you the power 
to do, — to bring it to pass, — which will be 
of more value to you than gold. It is an 
indispensable element of success. 

Kemember, then, that the " acquisition of 
potver is of more value than the acquisition 
of knowledge." It is the man of great wis- 
dom who says, in the sacred Scriptures, 
"Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it 
with thy might." 



16 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 



II. 

CONCENTKATION : HOW TO ACQUIRE IT. 

"17 OU have shown by your questions that 
you appreciate the value and the neces- 
sity of the power of concentration of the 
mind, but some of you fail to see how it 
can be secured. We shall have time for 
but a few of the questions this morning. 

Question I. — " Can the power to concen- 
trate the mind upon one subject be cultivated 
to any great extent ? Do not different per- 
sons differ radically by nature in respect to 
this power ? " 

Question II. — " How can the power to 
think upon one subject, to the exclusion of 
irrelevant thoughts, be acquired? Is not 
this power of slow growth ? " 



CONCE:PfTRATION : HOW TO ACQUIEE IT. 17 

Question III, — " Deae Teachee : I liked 
your remarks this morniDg about the power 
of applying our minds to whatever we want 
to, but I for one cannot do it. I have tried 
again and again. It seems to me we are 
subject to fits and moods, and when we can 
we can^ and when we can't we can't, and 
.there is the end of it. At any rate, that is 
my case. 

"Now, last Saturday, I wrote my essay 
nearly all at one sitting, but I could not do 
it again. I had been at work on it for many 
days and had accomplished but little. Sat- 
urday I was going away with Cyrus, and, 
just as I was ready to start, he came over to 
say that his brother had come, and therefore 
he could not go. So, having nothing else 
to do, I sat down to try my essay. The 
thoughts came faster than I could write them 
down, and in an hour or two I had it nearly 
finished. True, I had to prune and trim it 
2 



18 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

afterwards, and, of course, I am not vain 
enough to suppose that the thoughts after 
all were worth anything. The paper had no 
particular merit, but it was good for me. It 
was better than I had thought I could do ; 
better than I could have done by any ordi- 
nary process. Now, is not the mind sub- 
ject to fits and moods? and when the mood 
is on we can succeed, but if it is not on we 
work in vain. Thomas." 

These three questions represent nearly all 
I have received. If I can answer them 
satisfactorily, I am sure you will find the 
time well spent. 

Let us take the third first. Yes, the mind 
is subject to fits and moods ; but we can cul- 
tivate the moods. We can trairi the mind to 
work or not to work. The thing for us to 
do is so to train and school and discipline 
;the mind that it will do our bidding. In 



CONCENTEATION ! HOW TO ACQUIRE IT. 19 

other words," that the will shall govern and 
control all the powers. You will observe 
that when Saturday had come the burden of 
the week's lessons was off. Thomas's mmd 
was free and elastic ; then, when Cyrus could 
not go, nothing was left for Thomas to think 
about but that essay. The circumstances 
were favorable to the entire concentration of 
the mind's powers. The case illustrates, at 
least, that when the mind is thus concen- 
trated it acts with far greater power and 
success than otherwise. The question that 
concerns us especially is how to secure this 
power, how to cultivate the habit. 

1. In the first place, you must exer- 
cise the full j)02ver of the will. By this I 
mean that you must be determined to bring 
it to pass. A student who cares but little 
whether he succeeds or not, will not succeed. 
It is the determination, the absolute will- 
force, that finds a way or makes a way. 



20 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

You will be surprised, by a little practice, 
to see to what an extent this power may be 
increased. Try it, and see for yourselves. 

2. In the next place you must be method- 
icaL Every lesson should have its own time. 
If you try to learn your algebra or your 
Greek to-day at nine o'clock, and to-morrow 
at twelve, and the next day at three, and so 
on, you will be lifting on the short arm of 
the lever. The power, then, must be greater 
than the weight, and, in this case, it never 
is so ; consequently, the lesson is not learned. 
Have a set time every day for the same les- 
son, and adhere to it. Then again, if possi- 
ble, have the same place in which to study, 
the same chair to sit in, and the same desk, 
in the same corner, and get your lesson from 
the same book. 

3. Learn by trial what circumstances are 
favorable and what unfavorable, and, turning 
aside from the less favorable, put yourself, 



concentration: how to acquire it. 21 

so far as practicable, under the influence of 
the most promising conditions. For exam- 
ple, some will study better sitting, others 
standing ; some in the morning or in the 
evening; some alone, others, possibly, in 
company ; some long before the lesson is to 
be recited, others immediately before the 
recitation ; some can learn faster by study- 
ing aloud, others in the most perfect silence ; 
some can learn mathematics best in the morn- 
ing, others in the evening ; some take their 
memory studies early in the day, some later, 
^ow, whatever moods 3^ou can find yourself 
subject to, cultivate all favorable circum- 
stances, 

4. Then, if you are committing to mem- 
ory, much aid is found in writing out the 
points to be remembered. The use of the 
pen or pencil is essential in fixing thoughts 
in the mind. 

5. Learn effectually, I pray you, the 



22 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

secret of self-dependence. Do not lean upon 
any one. Stand erect by your own power. 
Whatever lesson you have to learn, rely 
upon yourself, and not seek the aid of your 
sisters or aunts. 

The true office of education is to discipline 
and develop the powers of the mind. It is 
to give power, not to learn facts ; and he 
who has learned how to get a lesson in an 
hour that previously had taken two hours 
has made no small acquisition. 

One of the greatest benefits to be derived 
from a course of school training is in acquir- 
ing the ]}oweT to bring things to pass; to 
secure the habit of accomplishing your under- 
takin<rs. He can because he thiiihs he can, 
feels sure he can, has learned to trust in him- 
self, believe in himself, rely upon himself, 
is the true translation of '' Possunt, quia 
videntuT.^'' 

It is related of two monks that one of 



CONCENTRATION : HOW TO ACQUIRE IT. 23 

them expressed to the other his regrets that 
he could not say his prayers without his 
thoughts wandering to other topics. His 
brother thought that was unnecessary. He 
was not troubled in that way. 

" Are n't you ? " said the other. " Well, if 
you will recite the Pater Nostev without har- 
boring any thought but that expressed by 
the words of the prayer, I will give you 
my horse." 

"Agreed," said his brother; and, sinking 
on his knees, he began: ^^ ^ Pater noster ^ qui 
es in coelis, sanctijicetur nomen tuum.^" I 
wonder if he will give me the saddle, thought 
the monk. 

"Ah, brother, I was mistaken; I trusted 
unwisely in my own powers. I cannot do 
it." 

Nevertheless, the lesson was not lost upon 
him, but applying himself to the task, he 
soon acquired such a power of concentration 



24 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

MS to become an earnest, devout monk, and 
finally a great scholar with a world-wide 
reputation. Promptness, punctuality, de- 
termination, and correct habits of study and 
work will give you the victory. 



A PUKPOSE m LIFE. 25 



III. 

A PURPOSE IN LIFE, 

TIECENTLY was carried to the grave all 
that remained of the Hon. Samuel G. 
Arnold, LL. D. He was the author of 
the "History of Rhode Island," in two large 
octavo volumes, containing nearly six hun- 
dred pages each. At the funeral services 
addresses were made by Rev. Dr. Robinson, 
president of Brown University, Rev. Dr. 
Caldwell, formerly pastor of the First 
Baptist Church, and Rev. Dr. Hague, who 
was pastor of the same church when Dr. 
Arnold was a boy. I desire to call atten- 
tion to the address of Dr. Hague. 

' "The 6ccasion which calls us together 
to-day is to pay love and honor to our 



26 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

departed friend. There is nothing that so 
touches the deepest fountains of feeling in 
our nature, and calls forth from all, young 
and old, the sentiment of genuine sorrow 
as an occasion like this. For me the occa- 
sion, associated as it is with remembrances 
of a dim half-century, and taking in the 
scope of the characteristics of his boyhood, 
of its beginning and developments, to me 
it is bewildering. My first knowledge of 
my departed friend was in the year 1828, 
when I, a student from a theological semi- 
nary, transferred my relations to Newton, 
and when, nine years after, I was called to 
this pulpit by the illness of Dr. Gano. 
He was then a boy of sixteen years of age, 
and as regular an attendant on worship as 
any member of the church. He was then 
strongly intellectual, and could discuss any 
topic, and often used to speak to me about 
my sermons. What interested me in him 



A PURPOSE IN LIFE. 27 

at that time was the prophecy of power, a 
clear ideal already formulated of what he 
was to become. At the age of seventeen 
he was perfectly familiar with the history 
of Rhode Island, and miderstood her 
marine interests, and could elucidate the 
questions as well as any man in the state. 
When a young boy his plans of life were 
formed, for his love for his state prompted 
him to become its future historian. In the 
ten months in which he and I were compan- 
ions in Europe, I had good opportunities 
to learn his character. I can surely say of 
him that he was a lovable companion, 
praiseworthy and reliable. Before leaving 
home he was troubled with malarial fever, 
and in consequence was very weak. I 
have often said to him when he was writing, 
^Drop your pen and rest.' But he would 
reply, 'I cannot rest until I have finished 
this letter to my mother.' 



28 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

" There was another secret of his power : 
he was a man of integrity, with a large 
heart and a noble spirit. After his return 
from Europe the second time, he devoted 
ten years of his life to labor and toil in 
writing the history of his state. I have 
only to say to you, young men of Provi- 
idence here, that while you bid farewell to 
these remains, you must remember that 
the sources of his power were recognized 
in his youth and in his boyhood. And, 
although a distinguished biographer says 
that it is a characteristic with American 
youth to wander aimlessly along, yet, when 
we think of our deceased friend, we can 
say there are some exceptions ; and in doing 
this it makes our souls bound with joy, for 
we can yet think there is still some hope 
for our future. As expressive of that ideal 
which our friend who has departed realized, 
I would commend to the attention of the 



A PURPOSE IN LIFE. 29 

young men here present, some lines with 
which I closed the second centennial histori- 
cal address of this church on Nov. 7, 1839 : 

" ' Some high but humble 
Enterprise of good contemplate 
Till it shall possess thy mind, 
Become thy study, pastime, rest, and food, 
Bind thy whole soul to this thy purpose, 
And thou an angel's happiness may know. 
May bless the earth while in the world above. 
The good begun by us shall onward flow 
In many a branching stream, and wider grow.' " 

What a beautiful tribute to the boy that 
he remembers so well for fifty years ! 
Observe what he says : "A boy sixteen 
years of age, and as regular an attendant 
on worship as any member of the church. 
. . . What interested me in him at that time 
was the prophecy of power, a dear ideal 
already formulated of what he was to become. 
At the age of seventeen he was familiar 
with the history of Rhode Island, under- 



30 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

stood her marine interests, and could eluci- 
date the questions as well as any man in 
the state. When a young hoy his plans in 
life ivere formed.''' How well he carried out 
those- plans ! 

And is it true that " it is a characteristic 
with American youth to ivander ai7nl€ssly 
along ^'^ 9 If so, it is high time the error was 
corrected. ^''Aimlessly!''' " Wander aim- 
lessly I '^ What, with no pin'pose; shifting as 
the wind, ebbing and flowing as the tide? 
Indeed, I greatly fear this is true of too 
many " American youth " of to-day. 

Dr. Arnold had in early life the firm, fixed 
purpose to write the history of his native 
state, — a state small in area, but having a 
history of importance to the world. He 
lived to carry out that purpose, and the 
execution of his plan has brought great 
credit to himself and his native state. 

It is not possible for every boy to know at 



A PUPtPOSE IN LIFE. 31 

sixteen just what particular thing he is to 
do in life, but every one ought to have some 
purpose, some laudable ambition, some high 
ideal, and then strive to attain to it. One of 
your number asked me the other day, if I 
thought every young man could become what 
he chose to be. That was really asking 
whether the old adage is true, "Where 
there 's a will there 's a way." Did you ever 
know an aphorism of the ages that was not 
based on a deep truth? "Find a way or 
make a way." In an important sense the 
adage is true ; but the will must be full, thor- 
ough, complete. It must permeate every 
fiber of the boy's constitution. It must be 
permanent and reliable. It must not be 
ephemeral, superficial, or half-hearted. It 
presupposes some knowledge of the diffi- 
culties in the way, and a contempt for 
them as difficulties. The means are essential 
to secure the end. We cannot sit down, 



32 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

Micawber-like, waiting for something to 
turn up, to put us in the place we wish to 
occupy. If one wishes to become a rich 
man, he must make up his mind to hard 
labor, early and late, year after year, till the 
result is reached ; he must earn and he must 
save every penny possible. Read the life 
of John Jacob Astor or Stephen Girard, if 
you wish to learn the way to wealth. Is it 
your ambition to be learned, or eloquent, or 
honored? You must desire it with all your 
soul, and strive for it as for dear life ; and 
you must not get discouraged as the years 
pass by. But you must have that kind of 
an ambition which will admit of no refusal ; 
it must be discouraged by no obstacles, 
thwarted by no misfortunes, weakened by 
no reverses. That kind of a purpose and 
perseverance is what men are made of. I 
have heard it stated that Lord Beaconsfield 
in his boyhood aspired to the first place in 



A PURPOSE IN LIFE. 33 

the English government, and so he attained 
it. The story probably has no truth in it, 
and yet has underneath it a truth worth more 
than if it were true. You need have no 
childish wish to become the President of the 
United States, for generally he who strives 
after the place will never get it. The adage, 
"The dark horse will win," has a deal of 
truth in it. But you can and you ought to 
have a high and laudable ambition to prepare 
yourself for manhood, and for the duties 
which manhood shall bring to you. 

Few men, perhaps, like Gov. Arnold, can 
form so definite a purpose as he did in early 
life, and carry it out. But if one will disci- 
pline his mind by honor, fidelity, reliability, 
by industry and perseverance ; if he can, by 
mere force of will, learn his lessons faith- 
fully day by day, and by that habit of indus- 
trious faithfulness get control of the will, so 
that it shall do his bidding, — then, indeed, 
3 



34 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

has he prepared himself for success in what- 
ever field circumstances, over which, often, 
we have but little control, shall assign him 
his lot and task. 

To guide your lives aright, remember the 
following apt rules which have come down 
to us from the ages : — 

1. ^^ Festina lente.''^ 

2. "Whatever is worth doing at all is worth 
doing well." 

3. "Whatsoever thy hand jfindeth to do, do it 
with thy might." 

4. "Patience and perseverance accomplish won- 
ders." 

5. "What man has done, man can do." 

6. " In the morning sow thy seed." 

7. "E'ever put off till to-morrow what can be 
done to-day." 

8. "Providence helps those who help them- 
selves." 

9. "He that by the plow would thrive 

Himself must either hold or drive." 

10. " ]S"ot enjoyment and not sorrow, 

Is our destined end or way; 
But to act that each to-morrow 
Find us farther than to-dav." 



BLACK THE HEELS OF YOUR BOOTS. 35 



IV. 

BLACK THE HEELS OF YOUR BOOTS. 

/^NE day, when I was in college, I heard 
a young lady say, " I don't think much 
of college fellows." 

To my query as to the grounds of so sin- 
gular an opinion, she replied, — 

" They do not black the heels of their 
boots." 

When I protested that that charge could 
not be true of them all, she responded, — 

" Oh, no, I suppose not ; but the exception 
proves the rule. I have noticed that most 
of them only black the front part of their 
boots ; and they like reversible collars and 
cuffs." 

I went away absorbed in a brown study. 



36 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

The philosophy of these reflections seemed 
to adjust itself in the form of two queries : — 

1 . Is the statement true ? 

2. If so, what of it? 

The second query appeared to be of the 
greater importance. What if a man does 
not black the heels of his boots ? What does 
it indicate ? I have never ceased to moral- 
ize upon this question. What sort of a man 
is he who does not black the heels of his 
boots ? What is the moral influence of " re- 
versible cuffs and collars " ? I was reminded 
of the old story that the Greeks, in building 
a temple for worship, took as great pains to 
finish neatly and completely all those parts 
of the temple which were concealed from 
human eyes as those plainly in sight of all 
men. The reason assigned was, "The gods 
see everywhere." 

Indeed ! is that true ? Do the gods see 
everywhere ? Then what is the opinion of 



BLACK THE HEELS OF YOUE BOOTS. 37 

the gods concerning "putty" and "varnish"? 
Do these hide a multitude of sins /rom them; 
or really have they the power of seeing be- 
hind the " putty " and " varnish " ? Can God 
see a boy playing ball in a back yard on 
Sunday, in spite of the high fence? Does 
He see the letters that a merchant writes in 
his office on Sunday afternoon, with the cur- 
tains down and the blinds closed ? Does He 
see where stolen goods are secreted ? 

"Man looketh on the outward appearance, 
but the Lord looketh on the heart." What 
does this mean ? What is the extent of its 
significance ? What is the limit of it ? How 
much would there be left of this world if all 
the putty and varnish were taken out of it ? 
Veneering is a wonderful art ; but then it is 
a modern art. 

A statesman, on being told that the Em- 
press Eugenie wore paste diamonds, replied, 
" That is consistent with the character of the 



38 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

reign of her husband, Napoleon III." Was 
that true ? Is this an age of shoddy ? Who 
invented ^oc^s 5 as used under the fifth mean- 
ing of the word in Webster's dictionary, viz., 
" The refuse of cotton and wool " ? How rap- 
idly the use of the word "shoddy" has in- 
creased within twenty years ! 

What is the meaning of Attlehoro jewelry, 
gold wash, gold plate, fire gilt, nickel silver, 
single plate, double plate, triple plate, sugar- 
coated, wooden hams, wooden shoe-pegs, and 
wooden oats, straw paper, wood paper? Imi- 
tations, shams, pretence, appearances, de- 
ceptions ! Split peas for coffee, turnips for 
horse-radish, sand in sugar, glucose in mo- 
lasses, powdered limestone in flour, cotton 
sold for linen and for silk ! What inven- 
tions ! What sagacity in man ! How our 
vocabulary, even, has of late been enriched ! 
Is not this the age of shoddy ; the period of 
putty, varnish, and veneering? 



BLACK THE HEELS OF YOUR BOOTS. 39 

If Diogones needed a candle in his time to 
aid him 'in his search for an honest man, 
surely in these days he would want to carry 
about with him the most powerful electric 
light and a microscope. But does it pay? 
Does it pay to be false ? " An honest man is 
the noblest work of God." "Honesty is the 
best policy " ; not because it is policy, but 
because it is honesty. "Behold, thou de- 
sire st truth in the inward parts, and in the 
hidden part thou shalt make me to know 
wisdom." 

All who have made human life a study, 
know full well that truth, honesty, thorough- 
ness, the solid gold of conduct, pay iniinitely 
better than sham, shoddy, and simulation. 
It is very plain that broadcloth is more du- 
rable than satinet, and that hickory makes a 
better mallet than soft pine or poplar. 

My young friends, habits, when once put 
on and worn till they fit, are difficult to shake 



40 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

off. When cheating, veneering, exaggera- 
tion, varnishing, pretence, and simulation 
have once acquired common usage, it is 
exceedingly difficult to cultivate the hardier 
virtues of honesty, solidity, and downright 
truthfulness. Beware of the beginnings of 
evil. The first lie is like the small break in 
the dike. Be honest through and through. 
Form no partnership with secret sins. Avoid 
cant and make-believe. Be ingenuous and 
wholly honest. "Black the heels of your 
boots." 



DOGS AND BOYS. 41 



V. 

DOGS AND BOYS. 

Tr\n) you ever think how much like boys 
dogs are? Perhaps you think they 
are not much alike. If so, it may be only 
because you have not carefully considered 
the points in which they are similar. 

Let us, then, first try to find out in what 
ways dogs and animals generally are like 
boys or mankind. 

1. In the first place dogs have the facul- 
ties of perception, like men. They smell, 
taste, hear, feel, and see as well or better 
than any of us. What a wonderfully acute 
sense of smell they have ! A friend of 
mine had a dog, which was generally con- 
fined at home when the master went down 



42 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

town, but one day he broke away and took 
the scent, looking for his master. He fol- 
lowed him by a circuitous route, through 
many different streets, until he came to the 
building where the master was. Here he 
followed him up-stairs, and through several 
rooms, till he stopped at a closed door. 
When this door was opened he went in and 
found his master, and exhibited great joy 
at his success. We cannot, for a moment, 
pretend to equal the dog in the acuteness of 
our sense of smell. And what a keen, 
quick, intelligent eye a dog has ! 

2. They have consciousness, and here 
we must include attention and reflection as 
well. 

3. Then they are endowed with mem- 
ory, which faculty closely resembles the 
same attribute in mankind. 

These three sets of powers, dogs and the 
higher animals generally plainly enjoy in 



DOGS AND BOYS. 43 

common with human heinous. No ar£:ument 
is needed to prove it. It is not usually 
denied. 

4. But they have, also, the reasoning 
faculty. Many remarkable stories are told 
to illustrate this statement. Take up any 
book of anecdotes of dogs, or horses, or 
elephants, and you will find it filled with 
incidents which prove that these animals 
reason, and that they reason with much 
force and sagacity. I have time to give 
you but one instance, which I believe has 
never been published. 

A friend of mine had a large, shaggy 
dog, of native breed. One day this dog 
accompanied his master to a town half a 
dozen miles away. On his return, just as 
they entered a village two miles from home, 
Carlo found a nice bit of fresh meat, which 
had probably dropped out of a butcher's 
cart as it passed over the rough, stony road. 



44 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

The dog, of course, picked up the meat, 
and carried it along in his mouth. But, 
now, to his logical powers there appeared a 
difficulty. He must soon pass through the 
village, where, as he well knew, there 
lived many naughty, unprincipled, selfish, 
hungry curs, not one of which was his par- 
ticular friend. These hungry dogs would 
discover his prize, and would at once be 
seized with an uncontrollable desire to pos- 
sess it. They would all join in an attack 
upon Carlo, and, in defending himself, he 
would be obliged to drop the meat, and 
some lucky fellow would immediately snatch 
it up and run away with it. At any rate, 
though he did not say as much, these 
thoughts appeared to run through Carlo's 
head, and he at once acted upon them. 

As he passed up the hill, just entering the 
village, he found by the roadside a large 
piece of heavy wrapping paper. After 



DOGS AND BOYS. 45 

spreading out its folds with his paws, he 
carefully laid upon it his choice piece of 
meat, folded over it the paper, first on this 
side, then on that, and then taking it in his 
mouth, he passed quietly through the vil- 
lage in safety. No one of the many dogs 
he chanced to meet appeared to suspect the 
precious burden he carried ; and the wag- 
ging of his tail, after leaving the village 
behind him, manifested his own hearty 
appreciation of the success of his stratagem. 
5. Need I stop to argue the question 
with you, that dogs have imagination? Is 
it not apparent to every one. Horses, too, 
sometimes fear what they imagine is an 
evil coming upon them, more than a real 
danger which seriously threatens them. 
You may, by playing upon the imagination 
of these faithful animals, deceive them and 
cause them to fear where there is no danger, 
but only the suspicion of danger. 



46 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

6, I will not take time to prove that 
they are endowed with the ordinary pas- 
sions, and appetites, and emotions, and 
sensibilities which characterize the human 
species. They love and hate, they fear 
and dread, they manifest anger and revenge, 
and often are skillful in inflicting punish- 
ment upon their tormentors. 

We must conclude, therefore, that the 
higher orders of animals, nearest mankind, 
are possessed of the same physical nature, 
and have similar intellectual capacities. 
They may, perhaps, be considered quite 
similar to the human race, and the differ- 
ence between boys and dogs may, therefore, 
appear to be rather difficult to define or even 
to discover. 

But do not be deceived. Differences do 
exist, and they are very important ones. It 
is true that dogs have bodies, with feet, and 
eyes, and ears ; they have minds and can 



DOGS AND BOYS. 47 

perceive, remember, and reason. The intel- 
lectual difference would appear one of de- 
gree rather than of kind. Yet one essential 
point of distinction is found just here. 

1 . Whatever man learns lie may transfer 
or transmit to the next generation. Brutes 
cannot. If one invent a steam engine or a 
telephone, he can transmit the knowledge 
thus gained to those who come after, so that 
no one need waste time and thought in again 
inventing the same thing. Not so the dog. 
He can never transfer or transmit to another 
what he has learned. There may be an 
intellectual difference in dogs or horses, but 
it is one of degree rather than of kind. 
"Blood will tell" in the lower orders, as in 
man. The differences in breeds are as 
marked and as clearly manifest in animals 
as are families and races among mankind. 
But nothing can be found to contradict the 
statement made above, that brutes cannot 



48 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

transmit intelligence. If a dog is taught a 
trick, his descendants must be taught it in 
just the same way. 

2. But the great, the essential difference 
between the highest type of the brutes and 
the lowest man is the following : Man every- 
where has a conscience, the hrute has none, 
Man alone, of all the animal creation, is en- 
dowed with the moral sense » That moral 
sense is conscience. 

But you say, "Animals have this moral 
sense." 

"Do they?" 

" Oh, yes ; I have a dog that always shows 
it when he has done wrong. He will look 
sheepish, and show plainly that he knows he 
has done wrong, and expects a whipping. 
Then, when he is whipped, he will come up 
so penitently and lick your hand, as much as 
to say, 'I am very sorry, and won't do it 
again.'" 



DOGS AND BOYS. 49 

" Let US examine the case a little. What 
does he do ? Give an example of his wrong 
doing." 

" Oh, well, for instance, he will steal meat, 
when he can, and run away with it." 

" You have whipped him for it repeatedly, 
I suppose ? " 

"Yes, I have." 

"Well, let me suggest a change in your 
programme. You whip him for not stealing 
when he has a chance, and when he does 
steal praise him, and pat him on the head, 
and call him a good dog. Soon he will learn 
that you want him to steal, and expect him 
to do it. Then, when he has stolen a bit of 
meat he will bring it to you and wag his tail, 
expecting to be praised for his smartness. 
He will very soon forget that it is wrong to 
steal." 

The truth of the matter is that he learns 
readily whether you wish and expect him to 
4 



50 TALKS WITH MY BOYS, 

steal or not. He does what he knows you 
wish and expect him to do. It is the whip- 
ping or the praise *hat he is looking for. 
He has no idea of the right and wrong in the 
case. This is shown conclusively in this 
way : There is no uniformity in the case of 
all dogs by which they are impelled to show 
apparent guilt or innocence, in every case, 
for some particular act, irrespective of pre- 
vious training. That is, they may at any 
time be taught to look for a whipping for 
doing any particular act, in which case they 
will slink away looking guilty ; or they may 
be taught to expect to be praised, in which 
case they will appear to have done a right 
and acceptable thing, and will expect to be 
commended for it, because they have re- 
ceived commendation before for the same 
act. They appeared guilty in the other case 
simply because a whipping had hitherto fol- 
lowed the act they had now done. Their 



DOGS AND BOYS. 51 

highest idea of right and wrong was simply 
rewards and punishments as an expected 
sequence of the act performed. 

But what is conscience ? Various defini- 
tions of this faculty have been given, and I 
suspect very erroneous ideas prevail exten- 
sively as to its office and functions. Many 
suppose conscience tells us what is right; 
but, unless I am greatly mistaken, this fac- 
ulty has no power whatever to answer the 
question, "A¥hat is right?" or the other 
question, "What is wrong? " We determine 
what is right or what is wrong by judgment, 
our reason, our prejudices, our early educa- 
tion, and in various other ways. Conscience 
tells us two things : — 

1 . There is a moral character to voluntary 
actions. In other words, there is a right and 
there is a wrong. Some things (if we only 
knew what) are morally right, and other 
things are morally wrong ; and this in the 
very nature of things. 



52 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

2, There is a moral responsibility. We 
ought to do the right (when we have found 
out what is right), and we ought to avoid 
the wrong. It is the sense of " oughtness," 
as Joseph Cook calls it. We have this fac- 
ulty to tell us that voluntary actions have a 
moral character; not to tell us what the 
moral character of a particular act is, but 
that it has a character, either right or wrong, 
and that when we have found out what this 
character is, we should then act accordingly. 
If it is right we should do it ; if it is wrong 
we should not do it. Besides, conscience 
does one more thing for us : 

3. It approves us when we have done 
what we believe to be rights and it condemns 
us when we have done what we believe to be 
wrong. 

Accept this definition of conscience, and it 
is ahvays infallible. The great mistake is in 
supposing that conscience tells us what is 



DOGS AND BOYS. 06 

right. A little thought will, I think, con- 
vince any one that people are much influenced 
in respect to what is right and what is wrong 
by their early training, by their surround- 
ings, by what others in whom they confide 
believe to be right or wrong. But in their 
best estate and condition their true guide 
should be the dictates of their reason and 
judgment. In fact, ^o, reason and judgment 
are given us to investigate, weigh the evi- 
dence, and determine the moral character of 
every act. Then, when these faculties have 
pronounced upon the quality of an act, the 
conscience steps up and says (if it be a good 
act), "Do it, do it; you ought to"; but if 
it is pronounced wrong ^ then, " Do not do it ; 
you ought not to." When conscience has 
been obeyed it approves us, when violated 
it condemns us. 

It follows, without saying, that we should 
exercise the utmost care to learn what is 



54 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

right. We are too often influenced by preju- 
dice and preconceived notions and biases. 
When we do not and cannot know, we ac- 
cept the dictum of parents and teachers, and 
other friends, in whose judgment we have 
confidence. But whenever it is possible for 
us to do so, we ought to examine, investi- 
gate, exercise our reason, our judgment, 
"prove all things," and then " hold fast that 
which is good,'' I suppose I must add, that 
in many things we are all more or less influ- 
enced (especially women) in determining 
what is right or wrong by an intuition, 
which is not easily accounted for. And it 
is often found that the moral instincts are 
quite as reliable as the most profound con- 
victions evolved from the careful utterances 
of reason. It is often said that in matters of 
conscience the first thought is the best and 
should be followed, but the second in mat- 
ters of judgment. The obvious explanation 



DOGS AND BOYS. 55 

of this is that our reason is so easily warped 
and twisted by our desires, that we are apt 
to bring the judgment to coincide with our 
wishes. Hence, the old adage, "The wish 
is father to the thought." 

There are, then, two important points of 
difference between dogs and boys, or be- 
tween animals and men. But they are vital 
points. They make the difference heaven- 
wide ; they unfold for mankind an endless 
series of progressive movements onward 
and upward ; discoveries, inventions, accu- 
mulation of knowledge and wisdom, and ad- 
vancement limitless and measureless. They 
reveal to us, through conscience and its 
moral responsibility, an immortality of end- 
less happiness within our reach, if we will 
but put forth the hand and grasp it. 

Measure, then, if you can, the vast differ- 
ence between the highest brute and the low- 
est man. Then attempt to span the gulf 
which separates that lowest man, the most 



56 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

ignorant and degraded, from the highest and 
noblest specimens of our race. Who can 
bridge the chasm? Who can adequately 
conceive the contrast? Who can possibly 
estimate the great distance, in this life or in 
the life to come, between a degraded victim 
of vice and crime and a noble, educated, 
cultivated soul, filled with all good motives, 
purposes, and actions? 

When we consider, therefore, that we are 
the architects of our own fortunes ; that the 
future, for time and eternity, is to be shaped 
by our own conduct; that here we are on 
probation, in a state of trial ; that all possi- 
bilities are within our reach ; that even our 
powers of greatness and goodness are prac- 
tically limitless ; that " where there is a will 
there is a way," how strongly should it 
stimulate us to the putting forth of our best 
powers to achieve all that is within our 
reach, to elevate ourselves in the scale of 
humanity to the highest possible point ! 



ELEMENTS OF SUCCESS. 57 



VI. 

ELEMENTS OF SUCCESS. 

T BELIEVE it was Dr. Young, the cele- 
brated English poet, who said, — 

" How sad a sight is human happiness! " 

We see all around us so many examples 
oi failure and misery in life^ that when a 
clear case of prosperous happiness presents 
itself the contrast is painful, and we are led 
to ask, " What are the causes ? " When we 
do see a marked case of success, we instinc- 
tively inquire, "What produced tJiat?'^ 

The other day I read of one who has, of 
late years, been well known in this commu- 
nity. He was brilliant, talented, cultured ; 
he associated with people of refinement and 
education ; but, alas ! the newspaper report 



5.8 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

said he was arrested in a distant city and 
locked up as a street beggar and vagrant I 
What did that? Why such a failure? He 
had become a drunkard. 

Twenty-five years ago, in a New England 
college were two young men. One was 
poor, working his own way for an education, 
the other was the son of one of the noblest 
men in the state, wealthy, and an upright 
Christian gentleman, moving in the best so- 
ciety. His son was ambitious and proud. 
He would pass by the poor young man 
upon the college campus without deigning 
him any recognition, not even a nod of the 
head. 

Twenty years went by. The rich young 
man studied law, and was admitted to the 
bar. After spending some years in a dis- 
tant part of the country, he returned to his 
native state a confirmed drunkard. One 
day he called upon his former college ac- 



ELEMENTS OF SUCCESS. 59 

quaintance and asked for three dollars to 
pay his bill for lodging, that he might not 
be turned out into the street. 

His friend gave him the money, and hoped 
he would put it to a good use. With that 
money, as it afterwards appeared, he bought 
the liquor which made him drunk; he be- 
came noisy and boisterous, got into a street 
brawl, was arrested, taken to the lock-up, 
and finally sentenced — and that not for the 
first time — to six months at the house of 
correction. 

But how much more satisfactory to fall in 
with incidents of the opposite character. 
Some of you know something of the early 
life of James A. Garfield, and of the secret 
of his success. 

Few men, probably, of late years have 
had a nobler reputation, stood higher in 
their profession, or fairer before the world 
than Admiral Farragut, whose statue has 



60 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

lately been unveiled in Washington. Let 
me read you a little incident which throws 
great light upon his career, from which many 
lessons may be drawn, but from which I will 
only ask you to notice the underlying prin- 
ciples which brought such signal success to 
his life : — 

ADMIEAL FAEEAGUT'S CONVEESIOlNr. 

In a recent conversation, Admiral Farra- 
gut said : " When I was ten years of age I 
was with my father on board a man-of-war. 
I had some qualities that I thought made a 
man of me. I could swear like an old salt, 
could drink as stiff a glass of grog as if I 
had doubled Cape Horn, and could smoke 
like a locomotive. I was great at cards, 
and fond of gaming in every shape. At the 
close of dinner one day, my father turned 
everybody out of the cabin, locked the door, 
and said to me, — 



ELEMENTS OF SUCCESS. 61 

"'David, what do you mean to be?' 

" 'I mean to follow the sea.' 

" 'Follow the sea ! yes, to be a poor, mis- 
erable, drunken sailor before the mast, be 
kicked and cuffed about the world, and die 
in some fever hospital in a foreign clime.' 

" ' No,' said I, ' I '11 tread the quarter-deck, 
and command as you do.' 

"']^o, David; no boy ever trod the 
quarter-deck with such principles as you 
have, and such habits as you exhibit. 
You '11 have to change your whole course of 
life if you ever become a man.' 

"My father left me, and went on deck. 
I was stunned by the rebuke, and over- 
ivhelmed with mortification. 'A poor, mis- 
erable, drunken sailor before the mast ! be 
kicked and cuffed about the world, and die 
in some fever hospital ! ' That's my fate, is 
it? I'll change my life, and change it at 
once. I will never utter another oath ; I 



62 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

will never drink another drop of intoxicat- 
ing liquor; I will never gamble. I have 
kept these three vows to this hour. Shortly 
afterwards, I became a Christian. That act 
was the turning-point in my destiny." 

Now, my young friends, what underlies 
this story? What do you discover besides 
the simple narrative? 

As I read this incident, and re-read it, 
and pondered upon it, a profound impres- 
sion of its hidden meaning, of its deep 
significance, came over me. I could "read 
between the lines" something not printed 
on the page. I saw plainly stated three 
important principles; and still further on 
three more were discovered. The first three 
were the fundamental principles of success, 
the foundation upon which the super- 
structure of a useful and prosperous career 
was builded. The second three were like 
unto them, and without which the first 



ELEMENTS OF SUCCESS. 63 

would have been rendered null and void. 
I read (1) that Admiral Farragut had a 
good CHARACTER. Ah ! boys, character is 
of primary importance. We can none of 
us achieve much, worth achieving, without a 
good character; that which can be depended 
on in an emergency ; that which is pure and 
bold, and true and good. Then (2) I no- 
tice in his life, as it has been placed before 
the world, that Admiral Farragut had real 
ABILITY, — intellect, mind, brains. He was 
no ignorant man. He was no common- 
place man in his mental caliber. He had 
talent. He also had (3) ambition. He 
could never have acquired the world-wide 
reputation he did, without a high and noble 
ambition. He proposed to accomplish 
something worthy in life, and he did. Had 
he not had a laudable ambition, he would 
never have made such a brilliant record. 
But these three important points are not 



64 TALKS WITH IVIY BOYS. 

the only ones that stand out in his life. 
Three other qualities are apparent. It is 
clear that Admiral Farragut could never 
have gained his remarkable reputation with- 
out hard and laborious service. He had the 
quality of (1) industry. He improved his 
opportunities. He became familiar with all 
history that related to his profession. It 
is related of him that during a year's resi- 
dence in Tunis, our consul, Mr. Charles 
Folsom, directed his studies, and "gave him 
a thirst for information," which, as Mrs. 
Farragut says in a letter, " as his eyes were 
not strong, kept all his household busy 
reading to him." His knowledge was 
varied, and in matters relating to his pro- 
fession, profound. He was one of the best 
linguists in the navy. Success comes not 
from chance, or from talent alone. It is 
won by fighting for it. It is acMeved. No 
great thing is done, no great prize won, no 



ELEMENTS OF SUCCESS. G^ 

remarkable success attained, without hard 
ivork. 

But I have known hard workers not to suc- 
ceed. I have in mind several boys of my 
acquaintance who luork hard enough. They 
will fire up like a rocket, and make a bluster 
and a sputtering, and go off with a whiz 
and a whir which you would think sufficient 
to move the world ; but soon the light goes 
out suddenly, and the result is a burnt stick. 
They are at work to-day on one thing and 
to-morrow on another. They lack (2) per- 
severance, Not so, however, David Farra- 
gut ; he had not only industry, but he had 
persistence ; he was steady, earnest, perse- 
vering, year in and year out ; he worked on 
quietly and faithfully, till he had risen from 
midshipman to lieutenant, commander, cap- 
tain, and rear admiral. Still there is lacking 
one other element to his success. He had 
labored faithfully and perseveringly for many 
5 



(>G TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

years, and had acquired no great reputation, 
wofciDie. He had not made a great name, but 
he had (3) patience to wait for the results. 

The war finally came, and he was thrown 
into actual service. He could now exhibit 
the qualities he had been acquiring during 
the long years of peace. He was now tried, 
and was not found wanting. He had entered 
the navy before he was ten years old, yet he 
was past sixty when he found the opportunity 
to distinguish himself, by exhibiting those 
qualities and that breadth of judgment which 
had been so long maturing. Ah ! my young 
friends, we must learn to be patient, and to 
n^ait for results. They will come in God's 
good time. Many a young man wants to 
jump at one bound to the top of the ladder ; 
yet that is a dangerous experiment. It is 
better to climb one round at a time, and the 
longer the ladder the higher our continued 
climbing brings us. 



ELEMENTS OF SUCCESS. 67 

Xow Admiral Farragut had (1) character; 
(2) ability; (3) ambition; and he had also 
(1) industri/ ; (2) perseverance ; (S) patience. 
He won great distinction, and, since there was 
no proper rank in the navy for him, the 
grade of Admiral was created for him whose 
name had become a household word through- 
out the land. He died as he had lived, a 
Christian gentleman, and mourned by the 
whole nation. In battle he was as fearless 
as Nelson, in public virtue and patriotism 
not excelled by the greatest heroes of an- 
tiquity, while in his spotless purity of char- 
acter he rivaled the illustrious CoUingwood. 
There are many naval names dear to the 
American heart, but 

"A brighter name must dim their light 
With more than noontide ray, — 
The viking of the river-fight, 
The conqueror of the bay. 



68 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

Shape not for him the marble form, 

Lot never bronze be cast, 
But paint him in the battle-storm, 

Lashed to his flag-ship's mast." 

Let me assure you, one and all, that any 
young man to whom God shall give life and 
health, if he display these six attributes in 
due proportion and extent, is just as sw^e of 
success in life as the sun is to rise to-morrow 
morning. 

One may attain fair or even brilliant suc- 
cess in some direction without a harmonious 
development of all six of these attributes, 
although it is by no means sure. But one 
who has all of these qualities need give him- 
self no uneasiness as to results. They are 
certain ; but let him patiently bide the time. 



WHAT SHALL BOYS DO? 69 



VII. 
WHAT SHALL BOYS DO? 

nPHE choice of a profession is a very impor- 
tant step for any young man. But that 
is not what I propose to speak upon at this 
time. It is necessary to go back of that and 
discuss some principles which underlie and 
which lead up to the choice of one's vocation. 
In one of these " new-fangled," modern as- 
sociations the executive committee is divided 
into several workino^ subcommittees. One 
of these subcommittees is called the " Out- 
look Committee." It is their business to 
study the signs of the times and see what 
subjects ought to be brought before the 
society. They are the advance guard, the 
pickets, the videttes, who go on in advance 



70 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

and study the ground, observe the "lay of 
the land," and, like Caleb and Joshua, bring 
back a report coupled with advice whether 
to go forward and in which direction. 

So with us this morning ; we wish to look 
ahead and observe the condition of things, 
and see whether it is best to scale this moun- 
tain, meander like the river through this 
valley, or make a flank movement to the 
right or to the left. What is best for boys to 
undertake to do ? 

A very good man of my acquaintance 
really believes that we are educating the 
boys too much. He thinks education makes 
them proud and unfits them, mentally and 
physically, for tvork. I suppose he would 
have a feiv — perhaps children of the best 
families — educated to fill the highest places, 
but the mass should be " hewers of wood and 
drawers of water," and consequently should 
not be educated above their sphere. 



WHAT SHALL BOYS DO? 71 

Col. Lockett, the largest cotton planter 
in Georgia, said, last summer, that several 
years ago he discovered that an intelligent 
person would pick more cotton in a day and 
pick it better than an ignorant one. In his 
mind great results grew from that discovery. 
If this merely mechanical work could he 
done better by intelligence, then everything 
else could, — hence, it follows that the mass 
should be educated ; the prosperity of the 
state requires it. The blacks and the whites 
must both be educated; therefore, schools 
must be established and supported for both 
races. This is a far-reaching inference, but 
it is a legitimate one. 

You often ask yourselves, "What shall I 
do in life ? What shall I strive to fit myself 
for ? What k{7id of a position shall I seek ? " 
The answer must inevitably be, "Do your 
best. Make the mo56 of yourself. Aim high." 
It was Daniel Webster that said to a young 



72 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

man, who hesitated to prepare to enter the 
legal profession because it was so crowded, 
" There is room enough up higher." And I 
hope you will bear in mind that Webster's 
answer has an application wider than the 
legal profession. " There is room enough 
up higher" in every distinct business of life. 
What the world needs to-day is leaders, 
— thoroughly educated, skilled, competent 
leaders. There is more difficulty in securing 
one first-class superintendent for a cotton or 
woolen mill than a hundred first-class weav- 
ers or spinners. There is more difficulty in 
finding a first-class, competent " boss " for a 
gang of shovelers, who shall direct their 
work skillfully and successfully, than in 
getting the entire gang of men to shovel. 
A few years ago a young man went into a 
cotton factory and spent a year in learning 
the work in the cardin2:-room. He then de- 
voted another year to the spinning-room ; 



WHAT SHALL BOYS DO? 73 

still another in learning how to weave. He 
boarded with the overseer of one of these 
rooms, and was often asking questions. He 
picked up all sorts of knowledge. He was 
educating himself in a good school, and was 
destined to graduate high in his class. He 
became superintendent of a small mill, at a 
salary of about fifteen hundred dollars a 
year. He was sought for a higher place. 
It happened in this way : One of the large 
mills in Fall River was running behind-hand ; 
instead of making money, the corporation 
was losing. They wanted a first-class man 
to direct the aifairs of the mill. They ap- 
plied to a gentleman in Boston, well ac- 
quainted with the leading men engaged in 
the manufacture of cotton. He told them 
he knew of a young man that would suit 
them, but they would have to give him a 
good salary. 

" What salary will he require ? '' 



74 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

" I ca^nnot tell ; but I think you would 
have to pay him six thousand dollars a year." 

" That is a very large sum ; we have never 
paid so much." 

"No, probably not ; and you have never 
had a competent man. The condition of 
your mill, and the story you have told me 
to-day, show the result. I do not think he 
would go for less. I should not advise him 
to, but I will advise him to accept if you 
offer him that salary; and I think he will 
save you thirty per cent of the cost of mak- 
ino' your o-oods." 

The salary was offered, the man accepted, 
and he saved nearly jTor^y^er cent of the cost 
the first year. Soon he had a call from one 
of the largest corporations in New England, 
with whom he engaged as superintendent for 
live years, at a salary of ten thousand dol- 
lars a year. He had been with this company 
only about one year before he had an offer 



WHAT SHALL. BOYS DO? 75 

of another position with a salary of fifteen 
thousand dollars a year. But he declined 
the offer, saying that he had engaged where 
he was for ^ve years, and he should not 
break his contract even for five thousand 
dollars a year margin. 

Two boys were in this school not long 
since, who were much interested in railroad- 
ing. One of them had an intelligent ambi- 
tion, and a definite plan before him. He 
intended, after leaving here, to take a full 
course of study at the Columbia College 
School of Mines, and he fondly hoped some 
day to be president of the great Southern 
Pacific Eailway. He may succeed, or he 
may fail in that particular hope ; but I have 
no doubt he will yet distinguish himself as 
one of America's great railroad-men. 

The other was infatuated with a desire to 
be engaged in something which would place 
him on a railroad train. He was tired of 



76 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

study, and had apparently no desire to con- 
tinue in school. He left study, and ac- 
cepted a position as brakeman upon a freight 
train upon one of our shortest and most ob- 
scure railroads. If he shall look for a thor- 
ough knowledge of the business, and use his 
best efforts to make himself master of all the 
details of railroading, he will soon rise from 
this undesirable position to something better, 
and may eventually be successful and gain an 
excellent position. But if he sits down con- 
tented as a brakeman on a freight train, with 
no plan or ambition for the future, very few 
would envy him his position or his prospects. 
What, then, shall the boys do? I went 
down to Pettaconsett the other day to see 
the foundations of the building that Mr. 
Corliss is putting up there for the new 
pumping engine which he has engaged to 
put in for this city.* I found that, in digging 
for the foundations, they came upon a deep 

* Prt)videiice. 



WHAT SHALL BOYS DO? 77 

bed of quicksand. Mr. Corliss, ever fertile 
in expedients to overcome obstacles, instead 
of driving down Avooden piles, sunk in this 
quicksand great quantities of large cobble- 
stones. These were driven down into the 
sand with tremendous force by a huge iron 
ball weighing four thousand pounds. I said : 

"Mr. Corliss, why did not you drive 
wooden piles on which to build your foun- 
dation?" 

"Don't you see," said he, "that the piles 
have no discretion, and that the cobble-stones 
have?" 

" I don't think I understand you, Mr. Cor- 
liss," was my reply. 

"If you drive a pile," said he, "^^ goes 
vjhere you drive it, and nowhere else; but a 
cobble-stone will seek the softest place and 
go luhere it is most needed. It, therefore, 
has some discretion, and better answers the 
purpose." 



78 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

I went away musing that the wooden 
" piles " and the " cobble-stones " represent 
two classes of boys. "The piles," says Mr. 
Corliss, "have no discretion, and go only 
ivhere they are driven.''' I think I have seen 
boys who represented this quality. "But 
the cobble-stones go ivhere they are the most 
needed,^' When boys fit themselves to go 
where they are the most needed, they will 
be pretty likely to meet with tolerably good 
success in life. 

In the olden time it was considered enough 
for a boy to learn a trade. He then had, at 
least, " something to fall back upon." Now- 
adays, if a boy has only a trade, he may 
prove to be badly off. Some morning he 
may wake up and find that his trade is 
utterly useless, owing to the genius of some 
inventor, who has patented a machine which 
will do his work at a tithe of the previous 
cost, and in a tithe of the previous time 



WHAT SHALL BOYS DO? 79 

required. These times require a young man 
to be so intelligent that he will know how to 
do business; and if the competition in one 
kind of business is too great, he will imme- 
diately and literally " turn his hand " to some 
other occupation. 

Years ago one machine shop made engines, 
another lathes, another guns, another sewing 
machines, etc., and no tvTO of them could, 
by any possibility, exchange works, Kow, 
a fir»st-class machine-shop takes a contract for 
makino^ a laro'e lot of lathes ; then chans^es 
its machinery and manufactures a hundred 
thousand rifles for some European power ; 
then contracts to make as many sewing ma- 
chines ; then commences the manufacture of 
mowing machines, or horse rakes, or what- 
ever the latest and most successful inventor 
wants made. 

But the boy needs two things, and to suc- 
ceed he must have them : (1) He must 



80 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

have an ambition to do his best ; (2) He 
must improve his mind, and prepare himself 
to have such " discretion " as will enable him 
to " go where he is most needed." A nian^ 
in this age, should not be a machine, nor an 
adjunct of a machine. He should under- 
stand the machine that he is to run, be supe- 
rior to it, not be run by it, but, if need be, 
change it to do more, or better, or different 
work. 



PRESIDENT Garfield's election. 81 



VIII. 

PRESIDENT GARFIELD'S ELECTION AND 
DEATH. 

TT is just one year to-day * since Gen. 
Garfield was elected President by the 
votes of the electoral colleges in the various 
states. That was a momentous day. It 
was one of the sublimest spectacles the sun 
ever shone upon. If a sublimer can be 
found it was that which preceded it. 
Thirty-eight states, extending from the 
Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the lakes 
to the gulf, had upon one day selected by 
ballot these electors. With them lay the 
power of choosing the chief magistrate of 
a great nation for the next four years. 
The ruler who was to bear sway over fifty 

* Dec. 1, 1881. 



82 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

million people was elected as quietly and 
with as little excitement as the most com- 
monplace and unimportant affair. The 
several colleges of electors came together, 
recorded their votes, made out and signed 
their certificates, sent one to Washington 
by mail, placed a second in the hands of a 
special messenger selected by themselves, 
gave the third into the keeping of the 
United States District Judge, and returned 
to their homes. Their stay together was 
not necessarily an hour, and their act was 
really but an executive one, or possibly it 
might be called merely a clerical one. The 
people had pronounced their judgment, and 
they had but to record the decision. Yet 
how sublime their duty ! They gave forth 
their votes, which selected a man who had 
risen from poverty and obscurity, who by 
his own powers had become one of the 
leaders in the land ; they had selected him 



PRESIDENT Garfield's election. 83 

and placed him in the position of the fore- 
most man of the world. He now was to 
occupy the most conspicuous post amono; 
the rulers of the nations ; the highest, the 
most enviable position among men. 

Three months must intervene to "five him 
time to mature his policy, select his cabi- 
net, and prepare to enter upon his high du- 
ties. Quickly these three months pass by. 
Four months in the discharge of the duties 
of his office follow them. His plans and his 
policy foreshadowed satisfy the people to a 
remarkable degree. Evidently he is worthy 
the place which he is called to fill, and 
equal to the duties he is to perform. Famil- 
iar with the wants of the country, versed 
in affairs of the government, vigorous in 
thought, decided in purpose, bold in execu- 
tion, he will discharge the duties of his 
position regardless of the selfishness of 
political demagogues and shallow place- 



84 TALKS WITH IVIY BOYS. / 

seekers. He is not to carry on the govern- 
ment to reward friends, nor is he to be 
deterred by fear of enemies. 

But, alas! "Man proposes, God dis- 
poses." The cowardly assassin, piqued 
because not appointed to the position he 
craves, with a morbid and half-insane desire 
to win notoriety in some way, yet not insane 
enough to abridge or in the least interfere 
with his moral responsibility, coming up 
behind him, fires the fatal shot which is to 
cause such prolonged suffering, and finally 
the death of our good President. 

Then followed an experience the world 
had never before received. By means of 
the telegraph over the lands and under the 
seas, the condition of the suffering President 
became the household talk of the civilized 
world. At the breakfast-table, on change, 
in the marts of travel, the tramway carriage 
or the railway coach; the English people. 



PRESIDENT Garfield's election. 85 

the French, Spanish, Italian, Cossack, 
Turk, or Austrian ; in Jerusalem, Mecca, 
Constantinople, Paris, London, or Berlin ; 
as friend met friend, the first salutation, by 
common impulse, was, "How is the Presi- 
dent? Will he live? God grant that his 
life may be spared ! " 

Never before, probably, in the history of 
the wide world was there manifested by all 
nations so general a sympathy, such cordial 
good- will, such earnest, heartfelt desires, 
from Christian, Jew, or Mohammedan, that 
the life of any one man might be preserved, 
as was manifest for the recovery of Presi- 
dent Garfield. Among all Christians, not 
merely in this land, but elsewhere, wherever 
men worshijD the one God and implore 
blessings through his Son, Jesus Christ, 
prayers were sent up to heaven for the life 
of Garfield. No such unanimity of Chris- 
tian purpose and desire was ever observed. 



86 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

Many men, good, pious souls, trembled, 
being weak in the faith, lest God should not 
grant a favorable answer to their prayers ; 
and so the infidel would scoff, and the 
unbeliever taunt, and say, " What good in 
prayer ? " 

In ancient times Uzzah was very zealous 
for the safety of the ark of God : — 

"And when they came to Nachor's 
threshing floor, Uzzah put forth his hand 
and took hold of it, for the oxen shook it. 
And the anger of the Lord was kindled 
against Uzzah ; and God smote him there 
for his error ; and there he died by the ark 
of God." 

These good people were very much afraid 
the oxen would stumble and overturn the 
ark.. They must put forth their profane 
hands lest God's ark should receive injury. 
The impulse appears good, but the purpose 
is neither wise nor reverent. 



PRESIDENT GARFIELD S ELECTION. Qi 

God knows. Man is ignorant. Let God 
do as seemeth him sfood. This should be 
the spirit of all true prayer. In an age 
given up to psychological speculation and 
material philosophy, is it to be supposed 
that the great God who presides over all the 
world, and who rules in all ages, shall bend 
his purposes to suit the short-sighted whims 
of finite man ? Yet God heard every prayer, 
and his answers were full of tender love and 
pitying mercy. 

President Garfield died Sept. 19, after 
eleven weeks of intense pain and suffering. 



88 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 



IX. 



PEESIDENT GARFIELD'S ELECTION AND 
DEATH. 

4 FEW days after President Garfield's 
death, I read in one of the daily papers 
— a paper whose circulation is not broad, and 
whose management is scarcely equal. to its 
circulation — that " undoubtedly the death of 
President Garfield would prove a severe blow 
to the Christian religion." The same day 
I met a man, a lamplighter, who belonged 
to that denomination of Christians of which 
the President was a member. Like Presi- 
dent Garfield, also, he was a preacher. He 
was a good Christian man, modest and quiet 
in his work, and in the absence of a regular 
minister he was in the habit of conducting 
the worship in the little chapel which had 



PRESIDENT Garfield's death. 89 

the words "Chuech of Christ" over the 
door. This good man was sincerely lament- 
ing the death of the beloved President. 
"Why," said he, "should he be taken who 
had the capacity and the opportunity in his 
high station and with his good heart and 
brilliant intellect to do such a world of good, 
while I, who am nothing and can do nothing, 
am kept alive ? I would willingly have died 
in his place ; but he has been taken and I 
am left. I cannot understand it," And the 
tear would obtrude itself, and did trickle 
down his hard cheek. 

I left him and walked away homeward, 
musing. The great orb of the sun was 
gently settling down towards the western 
hills ; all nature was quiet and contempla- 
tive. "Ah I" thought I, "how little short- 
sighted man can comprehend the plans of the 
great God ! " God is our father, we are his 
children. We may always rest assured that 



90 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

he is ever the true, loving, kind, and wise 
Father toward us. If we are true, loving, 
and obedient to him, and trust him with 
filial confidence, then all right-motived re- 
quests which go up to him from our loving 
hearts will receive careful attention from 
him and they will surely be answered. But 
is it true that all requests, right-minded 
requests, from the loving and obedient child, 
which are well received by the parent, and 
which the parent's love impels him to respond 
to, are answered always in the very terms of 
the petition? And if not thus answered, are 
they, therefore, not answered at all? Every 
one will say, "By no manner of means." 
The child's request is often short-sighted, the 
granting of which by the parent would inevi- 
tably bring pain and disaster. Yet, in such 
cases the parent may hear the request with 
pleasure, approve the motive that prompted 
it, and though, by his superior knowledge 



PRESIDENT Garfield's death. 91 

of cause and effect, prohibited from grant- 
ing it specifically, yet he may show in a far 
greater degree his love and his acceptance 
of the request by bestowing another and a 
greater hlessmg, which goes further and does 
more than the mere granting of the particular 
favor asked for would have done. 

A child desires a small sum of money, 
say twenty-five cents, to purchase some use- 
ful and necessary article ; he knows that his 
father has just that amount in his pocket. 
He beo^s that the father shall oive him that 
particular piece of money. His father does 
not at once answer his request. He repeat- 
edly importunes him for the gift. The father 
is sensible that the child's object is a good 
one ; his request is moderate. Had he asked 
for a much larger sum the father would not 
have deemed it at all improper, since it would 
have been paid away for important and use- 
ful articles. But the father finally says, 



92 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

"No, my child, for good reasons I cannot 
grant your request." Yet within a short 
time he gives him a five-dollar gold piece, 
saying, "I know your necessities, and you 
may have this money which will buy what 
you need. The quarter-dollar which you 
wanted was a gift to me from a dear friend. 
I did not want to part with it." Can any 
one say that the child's request was not cor- 
dially and joyfully received by the parent, 
that it was not approved, or that it was not 
granted ? He wanted the money for what it 
would buy. He got more than he asked for. 
He thought the quarter-dollar all the money 
the father had. The father was richer than 
he thought. The result aimed at was what 
the money would buy. The result was at- 
tained solely by the importunity of the child. 
The Christians of this country prayed for 
the life of President Garfield, because, pri- 
marily, it seemed needful for the country's 



93 

well-being. Has not God in a remarkable 
manner showered his blessings upon this 
country and the world, by and through the 
death of the beloved President, and in a 
manner superior to and beyond anything 
that Garfield could have done for it ? And 
has not this been done in direct answer to 
the loving and devout spirit of prayer which 
Christians manifested during those sad weeks 
of suspense ? Of what value is that broad 
and generous sympathy awakened by his 
assassination, sickness, and death, over the 
wide world ? It is of more force than stand- 
ing armies. Its power is superior to tons of 
tracts from the press of the Peace Society. 
It has accomplished and is destined to accom- 
plish what president's messages and congres- 
sional action and diplomacy could never have 
achieved. The ties which bind the nations 
together have been strengthened as never 
before by all human instrumentalities. 



94 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

How was our country rent by political 
feuds and factions ! How have they been 
silenced, and in fact annihilated, by the 
dumb lips of the dead President ! The war 
of the Rebellion left gaping wounds and sec- 
tional strifes which, as it has appeared during 
the past twenty years, ages and new genera- 
tions of men only could heal. The " South- 
ern policy " of President Johnson was a 
failure ; scarcely less so was that of Gen. 
Grant ; and not much more could be said 
of that adopted by his successor. President 
Hayes. What might have been done by 
Garfield, living, we cannot know, but what 
has been done by him, dead, is known and 
read of all men. But few jSTorthern states 
voted against Gen. Garfield for President, 
and but few Southern states voted for him. 
Yet, during those terrible weeks all Northern 
people and papers were accustomed to speak 
of him as ''the President." But in an ex- 



PRESIDENT Garfield's death. 95 

tended tour through the Southern states, 
while President Garfield was suffering, I 
observed everywhere, from newspapers and 
people, the tenderest expressions about ^^ our 
President." I hazard nothing in saying that 
the " Answerer of prayer," He who is prop- 
erly called a "prayer-hearing and prayer- 
answering God," has heard and has answered 
abundantly the prayer of his people, albeit 
in a way they had not dreamed of; though 
it is now evident to all that the answer is 
far more advantageous to the country than 
the simple and direct granting of the request 
would have been. 

And now what answer shall we make to 
our worthy friend and brother, the lamp- 
lighter ? Let us say to him : " Dear sir, God 
lives and he reigns. He doeth Jiis will and 
not ours. ^For my thoughts are not your 
thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, 
saith the Lord.' President Garfield in his 



96 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

death, through the kind providence of our 
God, as we sincerely believe, in answer to 
prayer, has accomplished not only more than 
in his life, but more than he ever could have 
accomplished by the longest life that our 
good wishes could have assigned to him. 
And as for thee, thou good lamplighter, 
what shouldst thou do but light thy lamfps 
just the same as before. ^In the morning 
sow thy seed, and in the evening withhold 
not thy hand ; for thou knowest not whether 
shall prosper, either this or that, or whether 
they both shall be alike good.' Light thy 
lamps, and leave not one in darkness. 
How knowest thou but this very night the 
light thou causest to stream out from some 
one lamp, over the highway, may prevent an 
accident and thereby save the life of some 
lad who in the after years will be a man of 
more importance to this land and the world 
than even President Garfield was ? Do not, 



PRESIDENT GAEFIELD'S DEATH. 97 

I beseech thee, let a single lamp be dim, but 
bright and burning ; and, withal, so let thy 
'light shine before men that they may see 
thy good works and glorify thy Father which 
is in Heaven.' " 

" At eventide there shall be light," 

" God moves in a mysterious way 
His wonders to perform." 

" Blind unbelief is sure to err, 
And scan his work in vain ; 
God is his own interpreter, 
Andi he will mak'e itplain,^^ 



98 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 



X. 



WHAT THE WATERFALLS SAID TO ME. 

" Where the Falls of Minnehaha 
Flash and gleam among the oak-trees, 
Laugh and leap into the valley. 



Wayward as the Minnehaha, 

With her moods of shade and sunshine." 

CO sang the poet, and the words rang in 

my ears day after day, when I had once 

seen that most exquisite picture 

" Flash and gleam among the oak-trees; 
Gleaming, glancing through the branches, 
With her moods of shade and sunshine, 
Minnehaha, laughing water." 

I had but lately gazed upon the boiling 
torrents of the Spokane, enjoyed the turbu- 
lence of the Dalles and the cascades of the 
Columbia, and marveled at the bold dash of 
the falls of the Multnomah. 



WHAT THE WATERFALLS SAID TO ME. 99 

A few days later I had crossed the plahi, 
pushed through the forests, rounded the 
south end of Lake Michigan, skirted the 
shores of Erie, stopped to drink in the 
grandeur and majesty of the king of water- 
falls, Niagara, plunged down the rapids of 
the St. Lawrence, and still later, driving 
through the Hoosac Tunnel, I was whirled 
alono^ the banks of the Deerfield, rushin^' and 
roaring over its rocky bed, across the Con- 
necticut ; and the iron horse, blowing, wheez- 
ing, puffing, lifted me up, up, the valley of 
the Millers River, an elevation of seven hun- 
dred feet between Greenfield and Gardner. 
This up-grade ride, bumping, turning, twist- 
ing, now on the right bank, now on the left 
of this turbulent stream, was in the nio:ht. 
The moon shone brightly, serenely, weirdly, 
now lighting up the rapid torrent, and anon, 
throwing its black, dense shadows like a pall 
over the seething mass. 



100 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 



YON SILENT MOON. 



with mellow light serene. 
Shines through the clouds with tender, modest ray, 
As if 't would hardly venture to appear 
E'en in the absence of the orb of day. 
And yet it shines; and peering through the clouds 
It sendeth down a chastened, loving look, 
As if, indeed, it were the mourners' friend. 
And kindly wished to bind the broken heart. 

When, dense and thick, the clouds have gathered o'er, 

And all is dark to mourning souls below. 

The moon with solemn silence peereth through, 

And seems to say, " There 's light fo7- you above. 

The earth is dark and full of troublous sin, 

And sin's attendant, sorrow, walkethhere; 

But courage take^ and look away from earth, 

For, far above terrestrial clouds, appears 

The light of heaven, which shines in cloudless sky. 

These earthly clouds that dim the light of day. 

And oft obscure the moon's more modest look, 

Do but bespeak the heavenly light above, 

And point to those bright realms of lasting bliss." 

The silver moon that shines with borrowed ray, 
Directs the soul to one great source of light; 
And thus from earth would draw the mind away, 
To God, the only source of light and love. 



AVHAT THE WATERFALLS SAID TO ME. 101 

Yf eaiy, yet restless, I could not sleep ; 
neither could I keep awake. I was in that 
half-way condition in which visions come 
flitting through the mind, and, the reason 
asleep, the wide-awake imagination has full 
play. The spirit of the water stood up be- 
fore me, now shrinking and bashful, now 
boldly riding forth upon the wings of the 
moonbeams, and began to talk to me. At 
first its tones were quiet and gentle as the 
mild zephyrs of the summer day, but gradu- 
ally increasing the power and decision of its 
utterances, its rapid cadences became as 
fierce and tempestuous as the hurricane or 
the tornado. And this is what it said to 
me : — 

" Have you no pity for me, O man ; for me, 
confined, imprisoned within these walls, and 
made to drudge and drive by day and by 
night without cessation? Who ever heard 
of Millers River? I have no name, no fame, 



102 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

no reward. I slave and drive, and hurry 
and skurry, and get no thanks, no compli- 
ments. If I could gather up my waters and 
make a bold dash like the Connecticut at 
Holyoke, pouring over the great dam, or 
rushins: throuo'h the ""iant wheel which drives 
so many thousand spindles and throws so 
many hundred shuttles, it would be of some 
account ; I should be of some service. Or, 
if I were like the grand old falls of Niagara, 
captivating visitors from all parts of the 
world ; or even like the dashing rapids of the 
Lachine, over which the steamboats ride, 
guided by the old Indian pilot, amid the 
wonder of the many passengers ! But no ; 
I must remain here forever, like a horse in 
the tread-mill ; worse than that even, for the 
poor horse is allowed to stop to eat and 
sleep, but I must go on morning, noon, and 
night,— 



AVHAT THE WATERFALLS SAID TO ME. 103 

' Never stop to think, 
Never stop to drink, 
Never stop to weep, 
Never stop to sleep,' 

but alv^ays working, pushing, crowding, 
surging, ever onward, never lagging, and so 
go down to oblivion, unappreciated, uncared 
for, unknown." 

Thus the waters of Millers River which 
tumble down seven hundred feet from Gard- 
ner — the highest point between Boston and 
Chicago — to Greenfield, entered its com- 
plaint and exhibited its envy of the Holyoke 
mill-dam, the rapids of the St. Lawrence, 
and the falls of Magara. 

Now, while I thought upon this complaint 
my eyes grew dim, my head drooped, and I 
was rapidly jostled from side to side, till grad- 
ually the scene changed, and I was no longer 
on Millers River, but was quietly seated 
upon the starboard bow of the steamboat. 



104 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

just floating into the very jaws of the La- 
chine Rapids upon the St. Lawrence. 

Suddenly the water-sprite stood up and 
shook its whitened locks, and beckoned me 
to listen : — 

"Pity me, traveler; condole with me in 
my misery ! I am the swelling mass of 
waters from the great lakes. I have poured 
over Niagara, and floated down through 
the Thousand Islands ; and now I must 
plunge and roar and foam and dash against 
these sunken rocks just to make sport for 
strangers who chance to come down the 
river upon these steamboats. Chained to 
this spot, shut up in this channel, confined 
between these grassy banks, I must work on 
like a pack horse, day in and day out, 
doomed to perpetual slav^ery. If I could 
only exchange places with that quiet, unob- 
trusive Millers River, or if I could be like 
my predecessor, Niagara, and have the honor 



WHAT THE WATEEFALLS SAID TO ME. 105 

of being the greatest waterfall in the world, 
I should be happy. But, dear me, there is 
no place for me ; no success, no opportu- 
nity for even a modest, laudable ambition." 

So complained the Lachine Rapids, and 
vanished in thin air, or sunk beneath the 
boiling flood. While I mused upon its 
plaintive wail, dream-like, the scene changed, 
and I was standing on the bank of the 
Niagara Eiver, just below the American 
Falls. A low wail caught my ear, and on 
turning around I saw, just rising from the 
water, a weird and haggard form, which sent 
forth a dirge-like moan in the following- 
words : — 

"Woe is me I Faint and weary, torn and 
bleeding, behold me, a prey to this surging 
flood. Very fine it may be to you, good 
sir, to look on and see this mighty down- 
pouring ; but not so interesting is it to poor 
me. Pouring, roaring, seething, tossing, 



106 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

plunging, lunging, here I am shut in from 
the rest of the world. My sisters, there, 
above me, bask in the sunshine, and leisurely 
float along day after day, and sleep in their 
quiet eddies at night. If I had the variety 
of the beautiful and picturesque landscape 
of the quiet Millers River, or if I could 
rush along the bed of the Spokane, or if I 
could leap down an immense precipice like 
the falls of Multnomah, I should be satis- 
fied ; but here I am compelled to heave and 
toss, and plunge and roar, from January to 
July, and from July to December, only to 
repeat again and again the same round ; 
round and round, over and over, whirling, 
swirling, fuming, foaming, rushing, gushing, 
onward, over and over, till I vanish in the 
mist, mocked at by the rainbow, and gone, 
because I am not ! " 

So complained the spirit of King Kataract, 
and wished his fate was anything but his 



WHAT THE WATERFALLS SAID TO ME. 107 

own. Suddenly T was on the new bridge 
that spans the Spokane River, in Washington 
Territory, just over tlie boiling torrent, look- 
ing down into the water below. The mist 
was rising and wrapping itself around me. 
It soon shut out the landscape, and a voice 
sounded in my ears ; it was hoarse and grim, 
and I was startled, till I looked, and the 
spirit of the waters was beckoning me, and 
this was its plaint : — 

" Would that I were elsewhere ! Would 
that I were otherwise ! Would that I were 
any else ! My task is hard, my life monot- 
onous, my reward but small. Could I but 
exchange places with the Dalles, or the Cas- 
cades , or the Multnomah ; but this monoto- 
nous life will be the death of me yet ! " 

Just then a loaded team, drawn by two 
braying mules, came thundering across the 
bridge, and the frightened spirit of the water 
was no more seen. Again, I was at the 



108 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

Dalles of the Columbia, that wondrous piece 
of nature's handiwork, and again the water- 
spirit complained. While I looked and lis- 
tened, another voice was heard, this time 
the voice of the Cascades, when in the midst 
of its complaint, behold the falls of the Mult- 
nomah ! It was a little river, but fifty feet 
wide, and after chasing its banks along a 
ravine well up i;ipon the mountains, it madly 
plunges down a perpendicular rock eight 
hundred feet, only to gather up its courage 
and glide down another cliff several hundred 
feet more, before mingling itself with the 
waters of the Columbia. It is indeed a 
charming waterfall, unique, beautiful, pleas- 
ing in every particular, both in itself and its 
surroundings. Yet here I found the same 
spirit of discontent. The mist rose from the 
foot of the falls, and wrapping its mantle 
about itself, it assumed the form which had 
already so often appeared to me, and thus it 
spoke : — 



WHAT THE WATERFALLS SAID TO ME. 109 

"Frightened, benumbed, exhausted with 
incessant labor, I have no peace in my life. 
Could I exchange places with my sisters or 
my brothers ; could I once visit the Spokane, 
or Niagara, or the St. Lawrence ; could I 
be the quiet little Minnehaha, "Laughing 
Water," there would be a beam of joy in my 
soul ! But no such good fortune awaits me. 
I am doomed to drag out a miserable exist- 
ence in this damp and secluded spot, I am 
half tempted to commit suicide." 

" What ! " said I to myself, " is there no 
contentment? Does every one wish to ex- 
change places with some one else? Have 
not these people ever read ^ The Vision of 
Mirza'?" 

Lo, while I was speaking, another water- 
fall appeared. It was no other than that 
which had started my fancy at first. I was 
sitting upon the little platform, looking upon 
the "Laughing Water." Wisely named; 



110 TALKS WITH MY BOYS- 

beautiful in its form, harmonious in its pro- 
portions, elegant in its surroundings, it was, 
indeed, a model. Cheerful and contented, 
it displayed a true happiness, devoid of 
oPivy, and, innocent of impossible ambitions, 
it flowed onward in its quiet and beautiful 
harmony, scarcely inquiring whence it came, 
or whither it was going. 

Only after I had twice summoned its 
spirit into my presence, did it quietly and 
modestly present itself. It was wrapped in 
a white veil of spray, and girded with a rain- 
bow about its waist. Its face was the face 
of beauty, and its features were those of 
quiet contentment and happiness. 

"Callestthou me?" 

" Yes, I called thee. Now tell me, I pray 
thee, how it is thou utterest no complaint? " 

"Why should I complain? The Father 
brought me here, and shall he not do right? 
In beauty he made me, and I am content to 



WHAT THE AVATErFALLS SAID TO ME. Ill 

be just what he desires me to be. Whence 
I came I know not, but that I " shall go on- 
ward to the great and boundless ocean, I well 
know. I go, contented and happy. The 
duty of the day I will do. Its reward is in 
His hands ; he will not disappoint me." 

*' Happy, happy spirit ! " exclaimed I, " not 
to envy its fellows ; not to wish for impossi- 
ble things ! " 

Here I heard a great noise and a confused 
hum of voices, and awaking, I found that the 
iron horse had stopped in the Fitchburg 
station, in Boston, at one o'clock at night, 
and the passengers were leaving the train. 

So I knew that I had but dreamed ; and 

that the lesson of the sleeping hour might 

not be lost, I have here written it out. 

"He, the master of life, descending, 
On the red crags of the quarry- 
Stood erect, and called the nations, 
Called the tribes of men together. 
From his footprints flowed a river, 



112 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

Leaped into the light of morning, 
O'er the precipice plunging downward, 
Gleamed like Ishkoodah, the comet; 
And the spirit, stooping earthward, 
With his finger on the meadow 
Traced a winding pathway for it, 
Saying to it, ' Eun in this way! ' 

And in accents like the sighing 
Of the south-wind in the tree-tops, 
Said he, ' O my Hiawatha! 
All your prayers are heard in heaven; 
For you prayed not like the others, 
Not for greater skill in hunting, 
Not for greater craft in fishing, 
Not for triumph in the battle, 
Nor renown amono- the warriors.' " 



BE EXACT IN THOUGHT AND WORD. 113 



XI. 

BE EXACT IN THOUGHT AND WORD. 

n^HE great teacher of America used some- 
tinies to say to his pupils, "Young 
gentlemen, there is a great deal of difference 
between doing yw6"^ right and a little wrorigJ^ 

It is often said that education is a double 
work : it includes (1) the training and the 
disciplining of the mind, and (2) the acqui- 
sition of useful knowledge. The former is 
the more important work, and, if the latter 
have any value at all, the knowledge must 
necessarily be exact knowledge. 

The old lady felt very much delighted 
when she found a recipe by which she could 
always tell the good indigo from the poor. 
" Take a lump of it," said she, " and put it 



114 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

in water, and if it is good it will— it will — 
it will sink or swim, I have forgotten which ; 
but no matter, you can try it for yourself 
any time." I fear a great deal of knowledge 
is acquired in that way, and it is just good 
for nothing. 

I heard a man telling about a gentleman 
down in Maine who "owned one hundred 
and twelve, or three hundred and twelve 
thousand sheep," he could not quite remem- 
ber which ; and as I heard his doubt I began 
to question whether it was not " one hundred 
and twelve " without the thousand. 

A friend of mine was telling of a voyage 
he took down to Newfoundland in a fishins^ 
smack, and he said he "saw a whale fifty feet 
long." 

" Fifty feet long ! " was the response ; 
" that is a big fish story. Do you expect us 
to believe it ? " 

" Why not ? That is my guess ; of course 



BE EXACT IN THOUGHT AND WORD. 115 

we did not measure him, and if you are 
going to guess it is just as easy to guess fifty 
feet as anything else.''' 

I fear much that passes for knowledge is 
only my friend's guess. One may as well 
"guess fifty feet as anything else." 

Now, in the use of language there is often 
a lamentable want of accuracy, and it is one 
of the legitimate and important parts of the 
school work to make the pupils exact in the 
use of words. The accurate use of " shall " 
and "will," "should" and "would," is so 
important that it is worth spending consider- 
able time to obtain an accurate knowledge of 
the exact distinctions to be made in the use 
of these little auxiliaries. Mrs. Partington 
has become somewhat notorious for her 
wrong use of words, or use of wrong words ; 
and the colored people are frequently quoted 
as making ludicrous blunders. 

But the fear is that this sort of inaccuracy 



116 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

is not confined to these characters. Mrs. 
Stowe, in "Uncle Tom's Cabin," makes 
" Aunt Chloe " tell about going to make cake 
and pastry at the " perfectioners " instead of 
the "cwifectioners." And John B. Gough 
tells of the colored preacher who was desir- 
ous of having the recess back of the pulpit 
" frescoed," and he made his wish known to 
his people in this way : One Sunday even- 
ino' at the close of the sermon he shut the 
Bible suddenly, and said, "There, my bred- 
ren, the Gospel will not be dispensed with 
any more from dis pulpit till the collection 
am sufficient to fricassee dis abcess." 

How often we hear misquotations from the 
Bible and other books ! and what strange pas- 
sages are sometimes quoted from the sacred 
Scriptures ! Many persons, well versed in 
Bible lore, are yet unable to repeat the 
Lord's Prayer accurately. I found a painter 
some years since, at work in a church in 



BE EXACT IN THOUGHT AND WORD. 117 

Boston, out on the Back Bay, painting in 
elegant letters the Lord's Prayer upon the 
wall of the church ; and the form of words 
that he was using was not to be found in the 
Bible or the prayer-book. 

This habit of accuracy is an important ele- 
ment in one's education. Knowledge, to be 
of any worth, must be accurate ; and the 
acquisition of knowledge, in order to be of 
value as a disciplinary process, must be 
equally accurate. Herein lies much of the 
value of the study of Latin and Greek. It 
obliges the student to be accurate in his 
study, and in his modes of thought. The 
future indicative and the present subjunc- 
tive of the third conjugation, in Latin, are 
to be carefully discriminated, since the 
change of a single word will alter the entire 
meaning of the sentence. The study of the 
exact force of the subjunctive mood in Latin 
is a matter of no slight importance to the 



118 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

boy as a disciplinary process. It is training 
the mind, improving the reasoning powers, 
sharpening the intellect, and acquiring accu- 
racy of judgment. The application of this 
may be made in a horse trade, in testing the 
quality of cotton, in buying wool, or in put- 
ting up a physician's prescription. 

This constant striving after accuracy 
greatly improves the power of memory ; 
and it is to be feared that the importance of 
this faculty has been seriously underrated 
by many of our teachers, and multitudes of 
scholars. " Whatever is worth doing at all 
is worth doing well,'' Herein lies a large 
part of the value of an education. Many a 
man inquires, " What good will these few 
pages of history, or this study of algebra or 
geometry, do my son? He will never use it 
in my business.'' 

Ah I there, my friend, is just where you 
make a mistake. The accuracy with which 



BE EXACT IN THOUGHT AND WORD. 119 

those history lessons are learned, the clear- 
ness of perception and reasoning acquired by 
those problems in algebra or those proposi- 
tions in geometry, will give your son accu- 
racy in whatever he will have to do in life, no 
matter what his business may be. If " thor- 
oughness " and " accuracy " are your watch- 
words in the school days, you will never for- 
get them afterward. But if you are careless 
and inaccurate at school, it will be found 
hard work to reform subsequently. 



120 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 



XII. 

THE BiSKET OF CHIP-DIET. 

TT7E have had frequent talks, first and last, 
upon the subject of "What Boys should 
read." There is at this day such an abun- 
dance of o-ood readino^ matter that no one has 
any excuse for indulging in objectionable 
reading. The presses of our enterprising 
publishers teem with good books, well writ- 
ten, often beautifully illustrated ; books of 
travel, adventure, biography, science, and 
the like ; and so cheap that few need be 
debarred the privilege of owning at least a 
few choice ones. The libraries are full of 
them, and most of you can get them from 
the public library, the Christian Association 
library, and other collections. Moreover, 
there are now many juvenile periodicals, like 



THE BASKET OF CHIP-DIET. 121 

the YoutNs Comjpanion^ St. Nicholas^ etc., 
which furnish weekly or monthly the hest of 
reading admirably adapted to the young. I 
think, therefore, there is not the slightest 
excuse for feedino^ on husks. 

The following incident illustrates the evil 
effects of pernicious reading. I do not sup- 
pose it occurred in this city, but I cannot 
justly say about that. The scene of the in- 
cident is supposed to be at the family fire- 
side ; the time, "early candle-lighting." The 
persons introduced are father and son. 

"Charles, come here. What is the mean- 
ing of such a report as this ?" 

Report of Charles M, Smith, for term end- 
ing JSfov. 27, 1884. Arithmetic, 57; Geog- 
raphy, 69; English Grammar, 43 ; Reading, 
85; Spelling, 71; Writing, 70; Average, 
66. Deportment, 72; General Standing, 
69. Whole number in Class, 19; Rank in 
Class, 19. 



122 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

" No. 19 in class of nineteen. Foot of the 
class I Well, well. T^'hat is my boy Charlie, 
is it ? How did this happen ? " 

"I don't know, sir." 

"Don't know, sir! Who does know? 
When you first entered the Everett School, 
a year ago last September, you ranked No. 3 
in a class of thirty. The next term you were 
No. 6, in the spring No. 10, and at the close 
of the year you stood No. 14 in a class of 
twenty-four ; and now you come home with 
this report. No. 19 in a class of nineteen. 
Well, where will you be next term?" 

"I mean to do better next term, sir." 

"Well, but just explain how this has come 
about." 

"I can't, sir." 

" You can't ! Has the teacher marked you 
unfairly?" 

"I think not, sir." 

"Does he show partiality?" 



THE BASKET OF CHIP-DIRT. 123 

"I don't think so, sir. 

"Well, then, how is it that you are at the 
foot of the class ? " 

"I can't tell, sir." 

"Can't tell, /can tell you, Charles. Do 
you see that basket filled with apples ? " 

"I do, sir." 

"Empty out the apples upon the floor, in 
the corner of the room." 

"I've done it, sir." 

" Now take the basket out to the wood-pile 
and fill it half full of fine chip-dirt." 

"Here it is, sir." 

"Now put in the apples." 

Charles piled on the apples till the basket 
would hold no more. 

"It will not hold them, sir." 

"Will not hold them? But it did before. 
Pile them on." 

Charles piled up the apples as long as they 
would stay on, and then said, — 



124 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

"It will not hold them all, sir." 

"Pile them on; pile them on. It held 
them all before." 

"Yes, father, but now the basket is half 
full of chip-dirt. ^^ 

"Ah, my son, there 's the mischief. When 
a basket is half full of chip-dirt it loill not 
holdpa basketful of cupj^les. You have been 
filling your mind with chip-dirt stories, and 
how do you think you can then fill it with 
arithmetic and spelling ? How many volumes 
of Oliver Optic's works have you read ? " 

"I have read them all, sir." 

"And how many dime novels?" 

"I do not know, sir. I have read a good 
many." 

" What papers do you read?" 

"2%e Fireside Companion^ The Boys of 
New Yorh^ and The Boys' Own.'" 

"Well, my son, that basket must be pretty 
nearly full of chip-dirt by this time, and how 



THE BASKET OF CHIP-DIRT. 125 

do you suppose you can now pile in the 
geography and the grammar ? " 

"I never looked upon it in that light be- 
fore." 

"Well, my boy, take the chip-dirt back 
to the wood-house and see if the basket will 
hold the apples then." 

Charles quickly left the chip-dirt outside, 
and filled the basket with the apples. 

"Does it hold them now?" 

"Oh, yes, sir; it holds them all now." 

"Well, my son, it will not be so easy to 
empty the chip-dirt from your mind. But I 
caution you not to put any more in.^^ 

Charles understood the meaning of this. 
It was a good example of object teaching, and 
the next term, although it cost him many a 
severe effort to keep away from the chip-dirt, 
his record was far less unsatisfactory. He 
was no longer below rank. It is to be hoped 
that Charlie will yet crowd out the chip-dirt 



126 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

from his mind by filling it with the good and 
the true. 

That is the incident ; and if it applies to 
any of you, I hope you will make the appli- 
cation. It gives me great satisfaction, how- 
ever, to say that I believe there is far less 
chip-dirt in this school than there was a few 
years ago. The last list of books that I 
noted in my memorandum book, asking each 
boy in school the title of the last book he 
had read, was a very satisfactory list. There 
was very little chip-dirt among the books 
read. Some day, when I have collated them, 
I may read you the list. 



WENDELL PHILLIPS. 127 



xin. 

WENDELL PHILLIPS : THE LESSON OF HIS 
LIFE. 

nPHE life of Wendell Phillips presents to 
the young several important lessons. 
The most obvious of these is, probably, the 
lesson of self-sacrifice for the truth. He 
turned aside from the most alluring prospects 
of wealth, social distinction, honor and fame, 
to devote his life to the advocacy of an un- 
popular cause ; and that from the pure mo- 
tive oitlie love of truth. 

Born in 1811 ; entering Harvard College 
in 1827, under sixteen years of age ; gradu- 
ating before he was twenty ; admitted to the 
Suffolk bar at twenty-three ; belonging to 
one of the first families in Boston, of which 



128 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

city his father was the first mayor ; the most 
cultured and polished society of the age 
opening its doors to him, not only on ac- 
count of his social position, but equally from 
his own scholarship and culture, — few 
young men in this country have ever had a 
more brilliant future predicted for them by 
admiring friends, or by a wide circle of ac- 
quaintances. He had had every advantage 
that wealth and social position could confer. 
Moreover, in his college course he had ex- 
hibited that native strength of intellect, and 
those superior traits of mind and heart which 
are the sure precursors of a brilliant career. 
Widely read in the facts and the philosophy 
of history ; his mind well stored with classi- 
cal learning, and well disciplined by thorough 
training in the foremost college in the land, 
— what door of advancement or preferment, 
what avenue of brilliant success, would be 
closed to him ? 



WENDELL PHILLIPS. 129 

At the early age of twenty-three, a prac- 
titioner at the Suffolk bar, which was then 
graced by such men as Daniel Webster and 
Jeremiah Mason, and had been honored by 
Joseph Story and Samuel Dexter, — he him- 
self having already exhibited remarkable 
powers of oratory, — surely the brightest 
and most successful career is now opening 
before him. It would require but little im- 
agination to picture him a governor of that 
ancient commonwealth, senator in the Amer- 
ican Congress, or perhaps the chief execu- 
tive of the nation. 

Scarcely, however, had he entered upon 
practice at the bar, when troublous times 
began. William Lloyd Garrison, born in 
1804, — apprenticed to a shoemaker, and 
afterwards to a cabinet-maker, — had learned 
the printers' trade, wrote for the press, be- 
came an editor, was imprisoned in Baltimore, 
and finally, on the 1st of January, 1831, had 



130 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

begun in Boston the publication of The 
Liberator, a paper which continued to advo- 
cate immediate emancipation till the fact was 
accomplished, and it was discontinued in 
December, 1865. 

On the 21st of October, 1835, a meeting of 
the Women's Anti-Slavery Society in Bos- 
ton was broken up by a mob of " gentlemen 
of property and standing." Garrison, who 
was assisting at the meeting, was seized, a 
rope put around his body, and he was 
dragged through the streets of Boston, and 
only saved from the mob by being put in jail. 

Wendell Phillips, then less than twenty- 
five years of age, was a witness to these 
transactions. These men, "well-dressed, 
rich, and the inheritors not only of money 
but of all that had been done for culture and 
enlightenment in Boston for two hundred 
years, yet still so sunk in essential ignorance 
as to believe they could fight moral con vie- 



WENDELL PHILLIPS. 131 

tions Avith brick-bats and ropes." How was 
the soul of the young man stirred ! 

His first distinguished mark as an orator 
was made Dec. 8, 1837, when he was 
twenty-six years old. It was in Faneuil 
Hall, the " Cradle of Liberty," an appropri- 
ate place for that first address of his in de- 
fence of liberty of speech, liberty of the 
press, and liberty of the slave. 

Eev. Elijah P. Lovejoy had been mur- 
dered in his own home, in the city of Alton, 
111., by a pro-slavery mob, losing his life in 
defending the freedom of the press. This 
meeting had been called to "notice in a suit- 
able manner" this event. Eesolutions, de- 
ploring his death and denouncing the mob, 
had been ofifered and were under discussion. 
Hon. James T. Austin, attorney-general of 
the Commonwealth, spoke in opposition to 
the resolutions. He compared the slaves to 
a menagerie of wild beasts, and the rioters 



132 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

at Alton to the " orderly mob which threw 
the tea overboard in 1773 " ; called Lovejoy 
presumptuous and imprudent; said that he 
" died as the fool dieth " ; and asserted 
(referring to Eev. William Ellery Channing, 
who had spoken) that " a clergyman ming- 
ling in the debates of a popular assembly 
was marvelously out of place." 

Wendell Phillips followed this specious 
tirade with a speech at once bold, incisive, 
and patriotic. " Imprudent ! to defend the 
liberty of the press ! Why ? Because the 
defence was unsuccessful ? Does success gild 
crime into patriotism, and the want of it 
change heroic self-devotion to imprudence? 
Was Hampden imprudent when he drew the 
sword and threw away the scabbard ? 

"Imagine yourself present when the first 
news of the battle of Bunker Hill reached 
a New England town. The tale would 
have run thus : ' The patriots are routed ; 



WENDELL PHILLIPS. 133 

the redcoats are victorious. Warren lies 
dead upon the field.' With what scorn 
would that tory have been received, who 
should have charged Warren with impru- 
dence! who should have said that, bred a 
physician, he was ^ out of place ' in that 
battle, and ^ died as the fool dieth.' 

"As much as thought is better than money, 
so much is the cause in which Lovejoy 
died nobler than a mere question of taxes. 
James Otis thundered in this hall when the 
king did but touch his pocket. Imagine, if 
you can, his indignant eloquence had Eng- 
land offered to put a gag upon his lips." 

The popular sentiment of the audience 
was changed. The resolutions were adopted. 
But more than that ; Wendell Phillips had 
put his hand to the plow, and never after did 
he look back. From that time till the day 
of his death he was the " silver-tongued ora- 
tor " for the slave and the oppressed . 



134 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

He threw up his commission as a lawyer 
because he would not make oath to support 
the Constitution of the United States so long 
as it protected slave property. For twenty- 
five years he was a firm, uncompromising ab- 
olitionist, before success crowned the cause 
he so ably advocated. His invective was 
scathing ; his boldness was startling ; his elo- 
quence was grand. He became the foremost 
orator of his age, for his heart was in his 
tvords. His soul was on fire, and it is fire 
that kindles fire. Turning his back upon 
riches, scorning honors, place, and power, 
he held it to be his greatest honor, his chief 
joy, to be called the fi'iend of the poor and 
the oppressed, to plead for the down-trodden 
and the enslaved. 

Finally came the slave-holders' rebellion. 
The gun which sent the first shot against 
Fort Sumter was heard in Maine and Min- 
nesota. The conscience of the North had 



WENDELL PHILLIPS. 135 

been quickened by Phillips's eloquence. 
There was to be no more compromise with 
slavery ; the days of its apologists had gone 
by forever. As a military necessity the 
slaves of those in rebellion were declared 
free. The rebellion was crushed. The 
Union triumphed over secession. By con- 
stitutional amendment slavery was forever 
made impossible in this country, which for 
eighty years had been called a free land. 
Surely Wendell Phillips earned the right to 
be named the defender of the oppressed; the 
friend of the slave. He was true to the truth 
as he saw it. To-day the pulpit, the press, 
the people of the land call slavery a sin^ jnst 
as Garrison and Phillips did forty years ago. 
The logic of events is potent to change the 
opinions of men. Had Wendell Phillips 
died thirty years ago, the verdict of the 
American people regarding him would have 
differed from that verdict to-day. The prin- 



136 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

ciples he advocated have succeeded ; hence 
he dies a patriot, a philanthropist, a Chris- 
tian. 

" Be thou like the old apostle, 

Be thou like heroic Paul; 
If a free thought seeks expression, 

Speak it boldly, speak it all. 
Face thine enemies, accusers; 

Scorn the prison, rack, or rod; 
And if thou hast truth to utter, 

Speak, and leave the rest to God." 



THE PHONOGRAPH. 137 



XIV. 

THE PHONOGRAPH. 

VOU were amused as well as instructed, 
the other day, by an exhibition of the 
phonograph. To many of you it seemed 
marvelous that you could talk into a ma- 
chine, and that what you said could be bottled 
ujp^ and afterwards brought out, at will, and 
the machine made to repeat exactly what was 
said. But so it was. Moreover, different 
things could be recorded by it, one after 
another, and the machine made to talh off 
three or four things at once. "Mary had a 
little lamb," could be recorded upon the ma- 
chine ; then upon the same grooves, " Hold 
the fort " could be sung into it ; again, after 
turning the machine back to the same start- 
ing point, a call could be played to it upon 



138 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

the bugle, and finally, the machine Avould 
register upon the same place the barking of 
a dog, and the crowing of a cock. The op- 
erator, as you saw, would then turn back the 
diaphragm to the beginning, and the phono- 
graph would at one and the same time tell 
you the pathetic story of Mary and her lamb, 
sing "Hold the fort," give forth, loud and 
clear, the bugle call, and at the same instant 
the cock's crowing and the dog's barking. 
If you directed your attention to one or an- 
other of these things, your ear would receive 
the sounds and recognize them. 

It is not strange that you should consider 
this a marvelous feat of the phonograph. 
Think of it ! You talk into a machine a bit 
of poetry, sing into it a song, harh into it a 
bark, crow into it a crow, blow into it a bugle- 
blast, one by one, and the little cylinder, by 
the turning of a crank, shouts them all out 
at you at once I 



THE PHONOGRAPH. 139 

But, on reflection, is this any more won- 
derful than that each one of you two hundred 
boys can hear what I am saying to you now 
and here ? I think my thoughts ; I open my 
mouth ; I suddenly expel air from my lungs ; 
it strikes a blow upon the atmosphere, and 
sets it vibrating. The vibratory motion of 
the air induces a corresponding vibration be- 
hind the drum of your ear. This afiects the 
little nerve line, which telegraphs the same 
vibration to the brain, and you find yourself 
thinking the same thought that I am think- 
ing. The telegraph, the telephone, and the 
phonograph ; three wonders ! No more mar- 
velous, however, than the human voice, with 
its wonderful effects. Of these three modern 
inventions, the phonograph may be of the 
least consequence practically, but theoreti- 
cally its philosophical inferences are strangely 
startling. 

Imagine two culprits cast into the prison 



140 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

cell together for Some crime which they have 
committed, but of which no one else has any 
positive knowledge. In the still hours of 
the night, with no eye to see them and no 
ear to hear them, they talk to each other of 
their crime. Unknown to them, this little 
revolving cylinder, with its tiny screw- 
threads and its diaphragm and needle, is set 
in the wall of the cell, and is noiselessly re- 
cording every spoken word, every uttered 
sound. 

After long delays, no matter how long, the 
prisoners are brought before the judge. The 
little silent cylinder is also brought into 
court. Its needle is set at the beginning of 
the little tin-foil grooves. The cylinder be- 
gins to revolve, and lo ! " every word spoken 
in darkness is heard in the light, and that 
which was spoken in the ear in closets is now 
proclaimed upon the house-tops." Out of 
his own mouth the culprit is condemned. 



THE PHONOGRAPH. 141 

Do we understand the phonograph of the 
Almighty? His omniscience, omnipotence, 
and omnipresence appear incomprehensible 
to us with such limited knowledo^e and 
power ; but can we not conceive the possi- 
bility of an ethereal wave vibrating onward 
and onward until it confronts us at the final 
judgment-seat? An impure word, a direct 
or indirect falsehood, may come back to us, 
and the judge himself may recognize our in- 
dividual voices. A life of honesty and up- 
rightness, a pure tongue, a generous spirit 
that speaketh no ill and thinketh no evil, — 
these things can never condemn us. But an 
impure thought, a hasty word, may return 
to torment us, we know not when or where. 



142 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 



XV. 

THE TWO POETRAITS. 

TT'OU have all heard, I dare say, the old 
story of a distinguished artist who 
painted a portrait of innocence. He took 
for his subject a beautiful boy, with face fair, 
frank, and friendly, his hair falling over his 
shoulders in golden ringlets, his eye full and 
large, his fofehead high and noble, and his 
whole expression such as would attract one 
as a sweet face of innocent childhood. He 
was his mother's love and hope and joy. 
The painting was finished ; it was a great 
success ; everybody praised it. The artist 
soon became famous, and had a long career, 
particularly noted for his skill in delineating 
character. 



THE TWO PORTRAITS. 143 

At last, when he was an old man, some 
friend reminded him that he had never 
painted the companion picture to this early 
portrait of "Innocence." "You ought," said 
he, "to paint a companion piece, represent- 
ing 'Vice.'" The painter thought upon the 
matter, and finally decided that if he could 
find a proper subject he would paint the 
counterpart for his "Innocence." One even- 
ing, as he was returning home, he stumbled 
over the prostrate form of a man stupefied 
with intoxicants. Fearing the man would 
perish, he kindly provided for his restoration 
to consciousness. He was one mass of filth. 
His hair long and matted, his face blotched 
and dirty, his clothing torn and filthy, — he 
was the impersonation of wretchedness, vice, 
and crime. "I have my subject," the painter 
exclaimed ; and he painted a faithful portrait 
of him, and hung it alongside of the picture 
of "Innocence." Here, then, was the con- 



144 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

trast. On the one hand, childhood, inno- 
cence, joy, hope, ambition. On the other, 
age, vice, crime, of hope bereft, ambition 
extinguished, absolute despair pictured upon 
his every feature. The sot lived but a few 
days after the picture was finished, but long 
enough, having seen the child's portrait, to 
recognize it, in extreme anguish and self- 
condemnation, as his own, taken in the early 
days of his innocence and purity. 

The story points a moral of great conse- 
quence to every one of you. You are school 
children, young, gay, joyful, happy, looking 
forward to a long life of honorable labor and 
success in the world. Will you all attain 
the goal of your youthful ambitions and 
aspirations? This is an important question 
for you. It would be painful in the extreme 
if one should have full knowledge of the 
future, and should know and predict that 
any one of you would fall into vice, crime, 



THE TWO POflTKAITS. 145 

and despair. But neither virtue nor fortune 
comes without the askino;. There are laws 
which govern life, laws as inexorable as those 
of physics and chemistry. Nothing but a 
miracle interferes with these rules of work- 
ing. 

To win success, to achieve usefulness, and 
to secure happiness, require a well-spent 
youth. The object and purpose of school 
and school-life are to raise the young to true 
manhood. The school is not, primarily, to 
impart instruction, to cram into the young 
minds a mass of knowledge, however useful 
that might prove ; but the grand aim of the 
school, of education, is to develop the genius 
of manhood, to unfold the higher powers of 
our being, to discipline the mind, to implant 
correct habits and accurate notions of things, 
to gain true views of life, that the recipient 
of this schooling may know upon what 
depends life's success and what causes life's 

10 



146 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

failure ; in short, to prepare him to stem the 
current and to resist temptation ; to acquire 
those habits of probity, industry, and perse- 
verance which alone will give him the ele- 
ments by which he may command success. 

It will be well for you all to bear in mind 
what these elements of success are. No 
man can secure true good fortune in life 
unless he has firmly implanted within him 
(1) firm adherence to the right, true prin- 
ciple, an honest heart ; (2) fixed habits of 
industry, with that control over his will, his 
desires, his appetites, his passions, which will 
permit him to attend steadily to his business ; 
and (3) that perseverance, growing out of 
his industry and self-control, which will per- 
mit him. to stick to his business or any object 
he may wish to pursue till success has been 
reached and his ideal realized. All these 
things depend upon strict attention to the 
duties of home and school at this period of 



THE TWO PORTRAITS. 147 

your life. " As the twig is bent the tree is 
inclined," is true if you give the right inter- 
pretation to it. Not every one manifests in 
the school days of youth what he afterwards 
becomes ; but by a careful analysis of what 
he was and what he did in his early days, 
the germ, the elements of his future life will 
generally be found apparent. Attention to 
duty, loyalty to truth, industry, and fidelity 
will invariably bring their reward. 

" Honesty is the best policy " ; not because 
it is "policy, but because it is honesty J^ 



148 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 



XVI. 

THE ELECTION OF PRESIDENT. 

"I N a few days the people of the United 
States will elect the chief executive 
officer for the next four years.* It is impor- 
tant that all the boys, and the girls, too, 
for that matter, since by and by they may 
possibly or will probably vote as well as the 
boys, should know exactly what the entire 
process is for the election of a President of 
the United States. Four years ago, on the 
day of the election, the writer called 
together his entire school, about two hundred 
and fifty boys, placed the class studying the 
United States Constitution, which had just 
finished their consideration of the executive 
department, on the front seat, and carried 
through substantially the following exercise. 

♦November, 1884. 



THE ELECTION OF PRESmENT. 149 

It is now published with the hope that a 
similar plan may be used in many schools on 
the day of election in coming years. 

"John, will you state to the school what is 
the first thing the United States Constitution 
says about the election of a President ? " 

" The executive power shall be vested in a 
President of the United States of America. 
He shall hold his office during the term of 
four years, and, together with the Vice- 
President, chosen for the same term, be 
elected, as follows." 

"What do you think, John, about the 
length of the term, four years?" 

" I think it is too short. If the term were 
six or eight years, and the President were 
not eligible to a re-election, there would be 
less disturbance incident to the contest, and 
the President would not be trammeled in his 
action, by the wish to so shape his course as 
to secure a re-election." 



150 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

" James, state what the Constitution says 
about the method of electing presidential 
electors?" 

"Each state shall appoint, in such manner 
as the Legislature thereof may direct, a num- 
ber of electors equal to the whole number 
of senators and representatives to which the 
state may be entitled in the Congress ; but 
no senator or representative, or person 
holding an office of trust or profit under the 
United States, shall be appointed an elector." 

" To how many electors, then, is Massa- 
chusetts entitled?" 

" Massachusetts has twelve representatives 
and two senators ; therefore she is entitled 
to fourteen electors." 

"To how many electors is Delaware en- 
titled?" 

"Delaware has only one representative 
and two senators ; therefore Delaware is en- 
titled to three electors." 



THE ELECTION OF PRESIDENT. 151 

"To how many, New York? " 

" New York has thirty-four representatives, 
and consequently has thirty-six electors." 

"How many electors are there, at present, 
in all the states?" 

"There are thirty-eight states, with seven- 
ty-six senators, and three hundred and twen- 
ty-five representatives. According to the 
Constitution, the whole number of electors 
would be four hundred and one." 

"Thomas, you may give the clause of the 
Constitution in relation to the time of choos- 
ing the electors." 

"The Congress may determine the time 
of choosing the electors, and the day on 
which they shall give their votes, which day 
shall be the same throughout the United 
states." 

" Has Congress by law established the 
day?" 

"It has. In 1792 a law was enacted re- 



152 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

quiring electors to be elected by each state 
within thirty-four days preceding the first 
Wednesday in December ; but in 1845 Con- 
gress passed a law declaring that the electors 
shall be appointed on the 'Tuesday next 
after the first Monday in November.'" 
" How are these electors appointed ? " 
"At the present time in every state the 
electors are chosen by the people. In the 
earlier days of the Republic they were ap- 
pointed in difierent ways in difierent states. 
In some of them the Legislature appointed, 
in others they were elected by the people. 
South Carolina was the last state to change ; 
she appointed her electors by her Legisla- 
ture until the civil war. Under her new 
constitution since the war, she has passed 
a law providing for their election by the 
people." 

" Now, William, you may repeat the clause 
in the Constitution which tells how these 



THE ELECTION OF PRESIDENT. 153 

electors shall cast their votes for President 
and Yice-President." 

" The electors shall meet in their respective 
states and vote by ballot for President and 
Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall 
not be an inhabitant of the same state with 
themselves. They shall name in their ballots 
the person voted for as President, and in 
distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice- 
President, and they shall make distinct lists 
of all persons voted for as President and of 
all persons voted for as Vice-President, and 
of the number of votes for each, which lists 
they shall sign and certify and transmit 
sealed to the seat of the government of the 
United States, directed to the president of 
the senate ; the president of the senate 
shall, in presence of the senate and house of 
representatives, open all the certificates, and 
the votes shall then be counted. The person 
having the greatest number of votes for 



154 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

President shall be the President, if such 
number be a majority of the whole number 
of electors appointed." 

"When do these electors meet to cast 
their votes ? " 

"By the law of 1792 the electors are re- 
quired to meet and give their votes on the 
first Wednesday in December." 

"At what place do they meet?" 

" At such place in each state as the Legis- 
lature thereof shall have by law directed. 
They usually meet at the capital of the 
state." 

"Is there such a thing, then, as the elec- 
toral college ? " 

" There are as many electoral colleges as 
there are states ; the electors, therefore, 
meet the same day in all the states and cast 
their votes independently of each other." 

" Henry, you may describe the certificates 
they make and sign." 



THE ELECTION OF PRESIDENT. 155 

"The electors are required to make and 
sign three certificates of all the votes given 
by them, and to appoint a person to take 
charge of and deliver one of the certificates 
to the president of the senate at the seat 
of the national government before the first 
Wednesday in January next ensuing. 

" If there should then be no president of 
the senate at the seat of government, the cer- 
tificate to be deposited with the Secretary of 
State, to be delivered by him as soon as may 
be to the president of the senate. Another 
one of the certificates is to be sent by mail, 
directed to the president of the senate at the 
seat of government. The remaining certifi- 
cate is to be delivered to the judge of the 
District Court of the United States for the 
district in which the electors are assem- 
bled. 

"The executive authority of each state is 
also directed by the act to make out and 



156 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

certify three lists of the names of the 
electors of such state, and the electors are 
to annex one of those certificates to each of 
the lists of their votes." 

" Suppose, for any reason, the messenger 
of any state does not deliver the certifi- 
cate of the vote, and the certificate sent 
by mail does not reach the president of the 
senate." 

" If a list of votes shall not have been re- 
ceived at the seat of the government on or 
before the first Wednesday in January, then 
the Secretary of State shall send a special 
messenger to the district judge in whose cus- 
tody a list has been lodged, who shall imme- 
diately transmit his list to the seat of gov- 
ernment by this messenger." 

"When, and how, and by whom are the 
votes from the several states counted ? " 

" On the second Wednesday in February 
succeeding^ the meeting of the electors, the 



THE ELECTION OF PRESIDENT. 157 

certificates shall be opened by the president 
of the senate, in the presence of the senate 
and the house of representatives, the votes 
counted, and the persons who shall fill the 
office of President and of Vice-President as- 
certained and declared agreeably to the Con- 
stitution." 

" When is the President inaugurated ? " 
" On the 4th of the following March." 
"Stephen, what are the requisite qualifica- 
tions for a President of the United States ?" 

"The Constitution prescribes three qualifi- 
cations, viz. : (1.) He shall be thirty-five 
years old. (2.) He shall be a native-born 
citizen of the United States. (3.) He shall 
have been a resident in the United States 
fourteen years prior to taking his seat." 

" You say fourteen years a resident. If a 
man should travel abroad during that time, 
would it make him ineligible ? " 

"!N^o, sir. He would not lose his residence 



158 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

by a trip abroad, if he still retained his 
home and legal residence." 

" Suppose he should be abroad on govern- 
ment service ? " 

" That does not cause him to lose his resi- 
dence. James Buchanan was minister to 
Great Britain, just prior to his election as 
President. A government officer on foreign 
service still retains his residence at his 
home. Moreover, should he have children 
born abroad, they will be considered as 
native-born citizens." 

"Albert, suppose there is no choice by the 
electors ; what then ? " 

"The Constitution provides that the 
house of representatives shall immediately 
choose, by ballot, a President from the per- 
sons having the highest number, not exceed- 
ing three, on the list of those voted for as 
President." 

" How shall this vote be taken ? " 



THE ELECTION OF PEESIDENT. 159 

" The vote shall be taken by states, each 
state having one vote." 

" Well, now we have followed the method 
of electing a President through, step by step. 
But let us return and see if we altogether 
understand it. Robert, what is the first 
thing, practically, that is done toward the 
election of a President ? " 

"The election of the electors," ■ 

"That, I grant, is the first step provided 
by the Constitution. But, practically, is 
there nothing done preceding the election of 
the electors?" 

" Yes, sir ; there are always at least two 
great political parties in the country. Each 
party calls a general convention from the 
whole country to nominate a President, and 
these political conventions put their candi- 
dates in nomination. Then, in every state, 
each party, by convention, nominates their 
candidates for electors ; so that in voting for 



IGO TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

a particular set of electors it is understood 
to be equivalent to voting for such a candi- 
date for President." 

" George, do not the citizens vote directly 
for the President ? " 

" ]Sfo, sir. The printed ballots usually 
have at the head the name of the party, 
followed by the name of the candidate 
for President and for Vice-President, and 
then, below, the names of the proposed 
electors." 

"I^ow, Winthrop, is this all necessary for 
the vote?" 

"No, sir ; all that is necessary is the names 
of the electors. Each citizen votes only for 
the electors, and not for President and Vice- 
President. Their names might be torn ofl' 
from the ballot without affecting the value 
of the vote." 

The teacher, in carrying on this exercise in 
his school, should have in hand specimens 



THE ELECTION OF PRESIDENT. 161 

of ballots, and exhibit them, and explain fur- 
ther upon this point. 

"Hollis, when is the President elected?" 

" When the presidential electors cast their 
votes for President, on the first Wednesday 
in December." 

"But is it not practically certain before 
that time ? " 

"Yes, sir. The electors are substantially 
pledged to vote for the party candidate pre- 
viously nominated ; so that when they are 
elected, on the first Tuesday after the first 
Monday in November, it is practically certain 
who is to be President, although he is not 
then elected." 

There are many other matters which would 
make an interesting discussion for us, as the 
whole question of the election of Vice-Presi- 
dent by the electors or by the senate, the 
succession to the Presidency and to the Vice- 
Presidency, etc. ; but we have had enough 
11 



1()2 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

for one lesson. Please consider for a mo- 
ment what a grand sight it is to-day, to see 
a nation of fifty millions of people placing 
their votes quietly in the ballot-box for their 
chief magistrate for the next four years. 
Perhaps we can all now sing "America." 



WHAT DO THE BOYS EEAD ? IGo 



XVII. 

WHAT DO THE BOYS READ? 

T?EW questions of more vital importance 
to the proper growth, development, cul- 
ture, and character of boys are now before 
the public than the question, " WJiat do they 
read?" Perhaps few have been more neg- 
lected in the past. It is gratifying to find 
a new interest now being awakened concern- 
ing this subject on the part of teachers, par- 
ents, and the public generally. It is high 
time this matter received a more careful at- 
tention. When we find the most demoraliz>- 
ing tendencies and the most direct inculcation 
of vice and vicious propensities spread broad- 
cast through the mails and other channels, by 
means of low and immoral papers and pam- 



164 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

plilets, wild and highly ^vi'ought stories, im- 
probable adventures, prize fights, brutal and 
vicious incidents, the details of crime spread 
out in all its revolting features upon the 
printed page, Indian and frontier life, 
etc., we may not be much surprised if 
youthful bands of robbers, burglars, and 
thieves are found in all our cities and large 
towns. 

Moreover, there is, in the nature of the 
case, no good reason for such a state of 
things. There never was a time when the 
young had easy access to so many and such 
a variety of good books, suited to all classes 
and all tastes. 

Books, in great number and variety, both 
new and old, of the very best quality, can be 
had by all young people. It is gratifying, 
now and then, to find teachers, as we fre- 
quently do nowadays, who are taking great 
pains to place before their pupils good books. 



WHAT DO THE BOYS READ? 165 

In a school-room of forty boys, of the age 
of nine, ten, and eleven years, the teacher 
a few days ago inquired how many of them 
were tlien reading some book. She found 
by their answers that one half of them were 
then engaged in reading the following books : 

"Arabian Mghts' Entertainment," "A Brave 
Soldier," "A Family Flight through Egypt and 
Spain," " Gulliver's Travels," " The Young Eover," 
" Little Men," " Little Women," " Zigzag — Classic 
Lands," "Life of Washington," "The Little 
Camp," "Hawthorne's Wonder Book," "Tom 
Brown at Eugby," "From the Hudson to the 
IS'eva," "Uncle Remus — His Songs and Sayings," 
" Robinson Crusoe," " Pilgrim's Progress " (by two 
boys), "Land and Game Birds of Kew England," 
"Boys of Seventy-six," "Child's History of the 
United States." 

The above was not the result of any spe- 
cial care. The pupils did not know that the 
question was to be asked of them. No par- 
ticular attention had been directed to the 
subject before making this record, only the 



166 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

pupils had been under good general training 
in relation to the subject. 

In another room of the same school, con- 
sisting of fifty or sixty older boys, another 
record has been made up. A little over 
seven years ago a record was taken, there 
being then present just sixty boys of between 
fourteen and nineteen years of age, of the 
most popular books read by them. This 
record was taken ^ov. 15, 1876. Another 
similar record was taken from the same 
room, March 13, 1884, there being that day 
present in the room forty-nine boys, no one 
of whom was in the previous record. The 
result will be given in the table below. 
The figures in the first column show the 
number of boys out of sixty who, in 1876, 
had read the books indicated ; the figures 
in the second show the number, out of 
forty-nine boys, who had read the same 
books in 1884. All books are given which 



WHAT DO THE BOYS READ r 



167 



bad over five readers among 
present : — 



Robinson Crusoe . 

Uncle Tom's Cabin 

Swiss Family Robinson . 

Ragged Dick .... 

Arabian Nights 

Life of P. T. Barnum . 

Life of Daniel Boone . 

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under 

the Sea .... 
One volume of Jack Harkaway 
School Days at Rugby . 
Tom Brown at Oxford . 
Round the World in Eighty Days 
Helen's Babies 
Gulliver's Travels . 
The Mysterious Island . 
Cudjoe's Cave 
The Last of the Mohicans 
Cooper's Pioneers . 
Cooper's Deerslayer 
A Journey to the Center of the 

Earth .... 
Mark Twain's Innocents Abroad 
Ivanhoe 



the 


number 


In 1876 


In 1884. 


52 


38 


46 


23 


38 


27 


36 


27 


34 


29 


33 


12 


30 


12 


28 


29 


27 


6 


25 


30 


17 


8 


24 


18 


19 


21 


19 


18 


18 


14 


16 


10 


16 


10 


15 


13 


14 


10 


13 


8 


11 


13 


12 


14 



In 1876. 


In 1884. 


10 


3 


8 


1 


8 


11 


8 


7 


7 


3 


5 


3 



168 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 



Waverley .... 
Seven Oaks .... 
Pickwick Papers 
Red Eover .... 

The New Testament through 
Lossinaf's Civil War in America 



To this list the following were, added in 
the last examination (March, 1884), which 
were not included in the former record : — 

In 1884. 

Peck's Bad Boy 33 

Coffin's Boys of Seventy-six ... 24 

Little Men ...... 18 

Yicar of Wakefield 15 

Life of Kit Carson . . . . . 15 

Oliver Twist 14 

Old Curiosity Shop 13 

Little Women 13 

Roughing It 9 

Talisman 7 

Rob Roy 6 

Quentin Durward 5 

Kenilworth 6 

Barnaby Rudge ..... 6 



WHAT DO THE BOYS READ "^ 169 

A careful examination of the above list, 
observing the number of readers for each 
book, and the change in number from the 
1876 record to that of 1884, will prove of 
much interest to teachers. It should be re- 
membered that the former record was from 
sixty pupils, and the latter from orAj forty ■• 
nine. 



170 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 



XVIII. 

THE PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES. 



I 



T is my purpose to give to you this morn- 
ing a series of facts in reference to the 
several distinguished men who have been 
elevated to the high office of President of the 
United States. You will not fail to remem- 
ber that this is the highest political office 
that can be given to a man in the whole 
world. 

To be chosen by popular suffrage — for it 
amounts to that, although by a little circum- 
locution — to be the chief executive officer 
for a term of four years of this great nation, 
probably the strongest, undoubtedly the 
most active and energetic, and perhaps the 
most intelligent nation on earth, — a nation 



PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES. 171 

now numbering nearly sixty millions of free 
people, — this is, without dispute, the greatest 
political honor that can be bestow^ed upon a 
man. The list of names of the men who 
have attained to this high rank is a worthy 
list. From George Washington to Chester 
A. Arthur, w^e need not be ashamed of the 
rulers of our people. I wish to name to you 
a series of facts which will show to you, in 
ver}^ brief epitome, their lives. These facts 
will include something about their education, 
the age at which those who had a collegiate 
course of study graduated, their age in enter- 
ing active life, the age at which they became 
President, and their age at death. By pla- 
cing these facts also upon the blackboard in a 
tabulated form, you can gather important 
suo:2:estions from them. That I shall leave 
to be done in the several rooms. 

1. " George Washington. At 13 wrote 110 
maxims of civility and good behavior ; began 



172 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

surveying at 16 for a doubloon a day; ad- 
jutant at 19 ; commanded a* regiment at 22 ; 
married at 27 ; commander-in-chief at 43 ; 
President at 57 ; died at 68. 

2. John Adams. Graduated at Harvard 
at 20 ; admitted to the bar at 23 ; married at 
29 ; interested in political affairs at 30 ; 
elected to Massachusetts Legislature at 35 ; 
delegate to (Continental Congress at 40 ; sec- 
onded a motion by Richard Henry Lee in 
Congress for the independence of the United 
States at 41 ; negotiated the treaty of peace 
with England (with Jay and Franklin) at 
47 ; minister to St. James at 50 ; Vice- 
President at 54 ; President at 61 ; died at 
90. 

3. Thomas Jefferson. Entered college 
at 17 ; admitted to the bar at 24 ; married at 
29 ; Continental Congress at 32 ; drew the 
Declaration of Independence at 33 ; gov- 
ernor of Virginia at 36 ; minister to France 



PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES. 173 

at 41 ; Secretary of State at 48 ; Vice-Presi- 
dent of the United States at 53 ; President 
from 57 to 65 ; died at 83. 

4. James Madison. Entered college at 
18 ; Continental Congress at 29 ; delegate to 
the Constitutional Convention at 3 6;. Con- 
gress from 38 to 46; President at 58; died 
at 85. 

5. James Monroe. Graduated at college 
at 18 ; entered the army at 18 ; Continental 
Congress at 25 ; United States senator at 
32 ; governor of Virginia at 41 ; envoy ex- 
traordinary to France, and purchased Louisi- 
ana at 45 ; President at 59 ; died at 73. 

6. John Quincy Adams. At 11 attended 
school in Paris ; entered the University of 
Ley den at 13 ; graduated at Harvard at 21 ; 
admitted to the bar at 24 ; minister to the 
Hague at 27 ; married at 30 ; minister to 
Berlin from 30 to 34 ; United States senator 
at 36 ; professor rhetoric at Harvard at 38 ; 



174 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

minister to Prussia at 39, and to St. James 
at 48 ; Secretary of State at 50 ; President at 
57 ; representative to Congress 63 to over 
80, when he died. 

7. Andrew Jackson. Commenced study 
of law at 18 ; admitted to the bar at 19 ; 
married at 24 ; representative in Congress at 
29 ; senator at 30 ; major-general in the 
United States Army at 47 ; won the battle 
of ]^Tew Orleans at 48 ; Seminole war at 50 ; 
President of the United States at 61 ; died 
at 78. 

8. Martin Yan Buren. Was admitted to 
the bar at 21 ; United States senator at 39 ; 
governor of New York at 46 ; President of 
the United States at 55 ; died at 80. 

9. William Henry Harrison. Lieuten- 
ant at 19 ; captain at 22 ; governor of Ter- 
ritory of Indiana at 28 ; battle of Tippe- 
canoe at 38 ; United States senator at 52 ; 
President at 67. 



PEESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES. 175 

10. John Tyler. Graduated at college at 
16 ; admitted to the bar at 19 ; Virginia 
Legislature at 21 ; governor of Virginia at 
35 ; United States senator at 37 ; President 
at 51 ; died at 72. 

11. James K. Polk. Graduated at college 
at 23 ; admitted to the bar at 25 ; Tennessee 
Legislature at 28 ; governor of Tennessee at 
44 ; President of the United States at 49 ; 
died at 54. 

12. Zachary Taylor. Was on his father's 
plantation till 24 ; first lieutenant at 24 ; 
captain at 26 ; major at 28 ; lieutenant- 
colonel at 35 ; colonel at 48 ; brigadier-gen- 
eral at 54 ; major-general at 62 ; war with 
Mexico from 62 to 64 ; President of the 
United States at 66 ; died at 67. 

13. Millard Fillmore. Spent four years 
at wool-carding ; commenced the study of 
law at 19 ; commenced practice at bar at 23 ; 
admitted attorney at 27 ; admitted counsellor 



176 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

Supreme Court at 29 ; member of Congress 
at 33 ; President of the United States at 50 ; 
died at 74. 

14. Franklin Peirce. Graduated from 
college at 20 ; admitted to the bar at 23 
member of Congress at 29 ; married at 30 
United States senator at 33 ; colonel at 42 
brigadier-general at 43 ; President of the 
United States at 50. 

15. James Buchanan. Was admitted to 
the bar at 21 ; member of Congress at 30 ; 
minister to Russia at 41 ; United States 
senator at 43 ; Secretary of State at 54 ; 
minister to England at 62 ; President of the 
United States at 65 ; died at 77. 

16. Abraham Lincoln. On his father's 
farm till 17 ; made a trip to New Orleans on 
a flat-boat as hired hand at 19 ; commanded a 
company in the Black Hawk Avar at 23 ; 
soon after began to study law ; Legislature 
of Illinois at 25 ; licensed to practice law at 



PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES. 177 

27 ; member of Congress at 38 ; canvassed 
Illinois with Douglass at 49 ; President of 
the United States at 51; died by the hand 
of the assassin at 56. 

17. Andrew Johnson. Apprentice to a 
tailor from 10 to 16 ; taugKt himself to read 
while apprentice ; journeyman tailor from 
16 to 18 ; married at 19 ; alderman at 20 ; 
mayor at 23 ; Legislature at 27 ; state sen- 
ator at 33 ; member of Congress at 35 ; 
governor of Tennessee at 45 ; United States 
senator at 49 ; President of the United 
States at 57 ; died at 67. 

18. U. S. Grant. West Point at 21; 
Mexican War at 24 ; brevet first lieutenant 
and captain ; captain in Oregon at 31 ; colo- 
nel 21st Illinois Volunteers at 39 ; brigadier- 
general at 39 ; major-general at 40 ; Lee's 
surrender at 43 ; President at 47. 

19. Rutherford B. Hayes. Graduated 
from college at 20 ; admitted to the bar at 

12 



178 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

23 ; city solicitor at 36 ; major at 39 ; lieu- 
tenant-colonel at 40 ; bre vetted major-gen- 
eral at 42 ; member of Congress at 42 ; gov- 
ernor of Ohio at 45 ; President at 56. 

20. James A. Garfield. Driver on Erie 
Canal at 17 ; boalman before 18 ; entered an 
academy, boarding himself, at 18 ; taught 
school at 18 ; entered college at 21 ; gradu- 
ated at 25 ; president of Hiram College at 
26 ; state senator at 28 ; colonel at 30 ; com- 
manded brigade at 30 ; brigadier-general at 
31 ; major-general at 31 ; member of Con- 
gress at 32 ; President at 49 ; died by the 
hand of an assassin at 49. 

21. Chester A. Arthur. Graduated at 
18 ; admitted to the bar at 21 ; quartermas- 
ter-general state of New York at 32 ; col- 
lector of New York at 43 : elected Vice- 
President at 50 ; President at 51. 

Average dates, so far as given above, of 
the Presidents : — 



PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES. 179 



11 Graduated from College 

12 Admitted to the bar . 

9 Married 

11 Member of Congress or Conti- 
nental Congress 

6 United States senator . 

3 Member of Cabinet 

21 President of the United States . 

17 Died ...... 

Youngest President, U. S. Grant 

Oldest President, W. H. Harri- 
son 

Died youngest, James A. Gar- 
field 

Died oldest, John Adams 

Married youngest, A. Johnson 

Married oldest, J. Q. Adams and 
TranMin Pierce 



Average age. 

20 yrs. 5 mos. 
23 

27 



32 
39 
50 
54 
71 
47 

67 

49 
90 
19 

30 



11 

8 
3 



180 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 



XIX. 

FACTS AND DATES IN THE LIVES OP 
DISTINGUISHED MEN. 

A FEW days ago I gave you some facts 
and dates in regard to the Presidents of 
the United States. Today we will consider 
similar facts and dates in regard to eighteen 
distinguished men, scholarly men, a majority 
of them presidents of colleges, others men 
in public or political life. By placing these 
facts upon the blackboard in a tabulated form, 
in the several rooms, your teachers will be 
able to draw important generalizations from 
them. 

I have selected prominent men who have 
attained distinction within the last fifty years, 
in political and educational life. 



FACTS AND DATES. 181 

1. Francis Wayland. Graduated from 
Union College at 17 ; studied medicine three 
years ; theology at Andover one year ; tutor 
Union College at 21 ; pastor First Baptist 
Church, Boston, at 25 ; professor mathe- 
matics and natural philosophy at Union 
College at 30 ; president Brown University 
at 31 ; died at 69. 

2. Barnas Sears. Graduated from Brown 
University at 23 ; finished theological course 
at Newton at 27 ; pastor in Hartford 2 years ; 
professor theological institution at 29 ; went 
to Europe at 31 ; professor at Newton and 
president from 34 to 46 ; secretary Board of 
Education of Massachusetts at 46 ; president 
Brown University at 53 ; agent Peabody 
Educational Fund at 65 ; died at 78. 

3 . E.G. Robinson . Graduated at Brown 
University at 23, in the famous class of 1838 ; 
ordained at 27 ; professor in Theological 
Seminary at Covington, Ky., at 31 ; and at 



182 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

Rochester at 37 ; editor of Qhvi^tian Review 
at 44 ; president Rochester Theological Sem- 
inary at 45 ; president of Brown University 
at 57. 

4. Henry B. Anthony. Graduated at 
Brown University at 18 ; governor of 
Rhode Island at 34 ; United States senator 
from 44 to 69; died at 69. 

5. Ambrose E. Burnside. Graduated 
from West Point at 23 ; major-general vol- 
unteers at 37 ; governor of Rhode Island at 
42 ; United States senator from 49 to h^\ 
died at 5-6. 

6. Timothy D wight. Graduated from 
Yale at 17 ; tutor at Yale at 19 ; licensed to 
preach at 25 ; then worked on farm four years ; 
Connecticut Legislature at 29 ; ordained min- 
ister at 31 ; president of Yale from 43 to 
65 ; died at 65. 

7. Jeremiah Day. Graduated from Yale 
at 22 ; tutor in Williams at 23 ; tutor in 



FACTS AND DATES. 183 

Yale at 25 ; professor in Yale at 26 ; presi- 
dent of Yale from 44 to 73 ; died at 94. 

8. Theodore D. Woolsey. Graduated 
from Yale at 19 ; tutor in Yale at 22 ; pro- 
fessor in Yale at 30 ; president from 45 to 
70. 

9. Cornelius C. Felton. Graduated from 
Harvard University at 20 ; tutor in Harvard 
University at 22 ; professor in Harvard 
University at 25 ; president of Harvard 
University at 53 ; died at 55. 

10. Charles William Eliot. Graduated 
from Harvard University at 19 ; tutor in 
Harvard University at 20 ; assistant professor 
in Harvard University at 24 ; professor of 
chemistry in Massachusetts Institute of 
Technology at 31 ; president of Harvard 
University at 35. 

11. Jared Sparks. Graduated from Har- 
vard University at 26 ; minister at Baltimore 
from 30 to 34 ; editor North American Me- 



184 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

view from 34 to 41 ; professor in Harvard 
University from 50 to 60 ; president of Har- 
vard University fronf 60 to 63 ; principal 
v^ritings from 39 to 65 ; died at 77. 

12. Edward Everett. Graduated from 
Harvard University at 17 ; tutor in Harvard 
University at 18 ; ordained at 20 ; appointed 
professor in Harvard University at 21 ; 
studied two years in Europe ; commenced 
duties as professor of Greek at 23 ; mar- 
ried at 28 ; member of Congress from 31 to 
41 ; governor of Massachusetts from 42 to 
46; minister to England from 47 to 52; 
president of Harvard, University from 52 
to 55 ; Secretary of State from 59 to 60 ; 
United States senator from 61 to 62 ; died 
at 71. 

13. Daniel Webster. Graduated from 
Dartmouth College at 19 ; admitted to the 
bar at 23 ; member of Congress from 31 to 
35 ; famous Dartmouth College case at 35 ; 



FACTS AND DATES. 185 

Plymouth anniversary discourse at 38 ; dis- 
course at laying the corner-stone of the 
Bunker Hill Monument at 43 ; discourse at 
the completion of Bunker Hill Monument at 
61 ; eulogy on Adams and Jefferson at 44 ; 
United States senator from 45 to 57 ; great 
speech in reply to Hayne at 48 ; Secretary 
of State at 58 ; 7th of March compromise 
speech at 68 ; died at 70. 

14. Henry Clay. Admitted to the bar 
at 20 ; Kentucky Legislature at 25 ; United. 
States senate at 29 ; in senate at different 
times sixteen years ; Secretary of State at 48 ; 
died at 75. 

15. Rufus Choate. Graduated from 
Dartmouth College at 20 ; began the practice 
of law at 25 ; member of Congress at 33 ; 
United States senate from 42 to 46 ; died at 
60. 

16. Horace Greeley. Learned printer's 
trade from 15 to 19 ; went to New York at 



186 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

20 ; began Morning Post, the first penny 
daily ever published, at 22 ; founded the N'ew 
Yorker at 23 ; edited the Jeffersonian at 
27 ; edited Log Cabin at 29 ; founded the 
XeiD Yorh Tribune at 30. He had no 
great success till he was 30 ; wrote "History 
of the American Conflict " from 53 to 55 ; 
candidate for President of the United States 
at 61 ; died at 61. 

17. Louis Agassiz. Studied at Brienne, 
College of Lausanne, Zurich Medical 
School, 17 and 18 ; Universities of Heidel- 
berg and Munich four years ; professor of 
natural history at Neufchatel at 25 ; pub- 
lished his great work on fossil fishes (5 vols.) 
from 23 to 33 ; professor zoology and 
geology of Lawrence Scientific School at 
Cambridge from 41 to ^% ; died at ^%. 

18. Horace Mann. Graduated from 
Brown University at 25 ; admitted to the bar 
at 27 ; Massachusetts house of representa- 



FACTS AND DATES. 187 

tives at 32 ; Massachusetts senate at 37 ; 
secretary Massachusetts Board of Education 
from 41 to 52 ; member of Congress at 52 ; 
president of Antioch College from 56 to 63 ; 
died at 63. 

Of the foregoing 18 persons, 11 were pres- 
idents of colleges, 6 were in political life, 1 
was a teacher. 



13 Graduated at college . 

10 Admitted to bar, or ordained 

minister . . ... 
4 Member of Congress . 

6 United States senate . 

7 Tutor of college .... 
9 Professor in college 

11 President of college . 

15 Died 

Youngest President of college, 

Francis Wayland . . .31 
Oldest President of college, Jared 

Sparks 60 

Youngest died, C. C. Pelton . 55 
Oldest died, Jeremiah Day . 94 



Average 


3 age. 


20yrs. 


5 mos, 


25 " 


5 " 


36 " 


9 '' 


45 " 




20 " 


8 '' 


30 " 




48 " 




69 " 





188 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

It will be observed from the foregoing 
summary that these distinguished persons 
began life, on an average, early. Seven of 
them were tutors in college, on an average, 
before they were twenty-one years of age ; 
the youngest when he was eighteen, the 
oldest at twenty-three. 



TWO YANKEE BOYS. 189 



XX. 

TWO YANKEE BOYS. 

" If ASTEE, please show me how to do 

^^ this sum?" 

" What is it ? Let me see it." 

" Here it is, on this piece o' paper. I don't 
know as you can read it." 

The problem read as follows : " A certain 
man died, leaving a will which provided 
that if at his death he should have only a 
son, the son should receive two thirds of 
his estate and the widow one third ; but if 
he should leave only a daughter, the widow 
should receive two thirds and the daughter 
one third. It happened, however, that he 
left both a son and a daughter, by which, in 
equity, the widow received $2,400 less than 



190 TALKS WITH MY BOTS. 

she would have had if there had been only 
a daughter ; how much would she have re- 
ceived if there had been only a son ? " * 

"Where did you get this problem, Dan- 
iel?" 

" A fellow sent it over to me from the 
Quabbin district. He said that none of 
the boys over there could do it, and the 
master could not do it, either." 

" Well, Daniel, I will try it when I get a 
few minutes' leisure." 

This occurred in the old school-house, in 

the Center district of N , Mass., in the 

winter of 1848-9. 

For two days the master labored on the 
problem, and then, upon Daniel's inquiry, he 
said he did not believe it could be done. He 
had tried it in all ways, but could not make 
it prove ; whereupon a boy named Levi, a 

* This problem came from an old English arithmetic 
of a century ago. 



TWO YANKEE BOYS. 191 

lad about fifteen years old, asked if he could 
try it. 

''Yes," said the master, " you can try it, 
Levi ; but you will hardly succeed, I think." 

In about five minutes, Levi said, "Here, 
master, I have it," and modestly handed up 
his slate. 

This was the solution : — 

The daughter would have ... 1 share. 
The widow twice as much . . . 2 " 
The son twice the widow's share , . 4 " 

The whole .... 7 " 

Now the widow received | of the estate, 
but if there had been only a daughter, she 
would have had | of it ; | of the estate minus 
I of it = 2\ of it ; therefore f-^ of the estate 
= $2,400. Then 2V will equal $300, and 
the estate will equal $6,300, The question 
is, How much would she have received if 
there had been only a son? That means, 
what would ^ of the estate be? It would be 
$2,100. Answer. 



192 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

" It proves, too ; see here. The estate was 
divided this way : — 

Daughter received |, which is . . . S900 

Widow received f , which is . . . 1,800 

Son received 4? which is . » . . 3,600 

^Vhole estate $6,300 

If there had been a daughter only, the 
widow would have |, or |4,200. $4,200— 
$1,800 = $2,400." 

"Well done, Levi ! You are a smart hoy.''' 

" Oh, that is nothin'. I can do harder 
sums than that." 

Daniel was delighted that some one of his 
school-fellows had solved the problem, for 
now he could brag of the smai'tness of his 
school, and its superiority to the school in 
the Quabbin district. 

In due time, therefore, the solution was 
forwarded to Quabbin. There it was studied 
carefully by teacher and pupils. The boy 
who had tried the hardest, and spent the 



TAVO YANKEE BOYS. 193 

most hours over it in vain, was named Cal- 
vin. He now felt decidedly chagrined at 
his failure to solve it. It was certainly eas}^ 
enough after you knew how. 

The winter passed away. Late in the 
spring Calvin found an opportunity to go 
over to the Center district one warm after- 
noon. He had never forgotten the problem, 
nor had his admiration for the boy who per- 
formed it weakened as time passed on. Ar- 
riving, therefore, in the village, he diligently 
inquired for a boy named Levi . 

At last he found a man who knew him. 

" Do you see that large white building over 
there — a shoe-shop ? " 

" Yes," was the reply. 
. " Well, that is n't the place ; but you go 
around through the lane beyond that white 
shop, and back in the rear you will find a 
small, one -story, wood- colored building, 
with a basement on the back side; down in 
13 



194 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

that basement you will find Levi pegging 
shoes." 

Calvin lost no time in following these ex- 
plicit directions, and opening the door, he 
looked in and inquired, — 

" Is your name Levi ? " 

"Yes, my name is Levi. What of it?" 

"Yfell, did you do a sum last winter?" 
and he described the problem. 

" Yes, I did that ; that 's nothing." 

And so these two boys were now intro- 
duced to each other. Their families were 
both poor, and though not yet sixteen, they 
were obliged to earn their living, — the one 
on a farm, the other pegging shoes. 

Calvin was a well-formed boy, handsome, 
with a ruddy face, black hair, and black eyes. 

Levi was light complexioned, with light 
hair, features far from regular, not hand- 
some, sedate-looking, and generally wearing 
a cross scowl upon his face. When his face 



TWO YANKEE BOYS. 195 

lighted up, however, as it would to his 
friends, or especially when he was particu- 
larly pleased with some success of a friend, 
he wore a genial, pleasant smile, which 
really made his features handsome and win- 
ning. 

These boys, thus introduced to each other, 
and now to the reader, soon became firm 
friends, and remain so to this day. Their 
life brings its lesson of what a New England 
boy can do, if he only have courage and 
perseverance. 

They met many times during the years 
between 1850 and 1860 ; and when the war 
of the rebellion commenced, it found them 
both practicing law in the city of New York. 
They at once gave up their business and en- 
tered the army. One raised a regiment and 
was appointed colonel, and the other commis- 
sioned major ; and so they went to the war. 
Think you, when they were bivouacking on 



196 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

the sands of the Old Dominion, some warm 
night, with the full moon shining down with 
its clear and cahii .light, reminding them of 
their childhood's homes in the old Bay State, 
the thought of the arithmetical puzzle did 
not come up in their remembrance, and was 
not the story of how they became acquainted 
with each other often told to their compan- 
ions-in-arms ? 

I have said that they were both poor ; yet 
after getting a good common-school educa- 
tion, and a few terms at an academy, they 
both studied law. Calvin studied with Judge 
Chapin, in Worcester, and in due time was 
admitted to the bar, and began his practice 
there. Afterward he went to New York, 
and there entered the arena, striving for 
legal and political distinction. He has now 
been for many years a distinguished judge 
of the Supreme Court of the State of New 
York. When he was studying law, he 



TWO YANKEE BOYS. 197 

gained his livelihood by practicing in the 
police courts, where he achieved a distin- 
guished success. 

Levi began the study of law in Worcester, 
but afterward entered the then famous law 
school at Balston Spa, N. Y., which was 
soon moved to Poughkeepsie. On his gi'ad- 
uation he was offered at once a professorship 
in the law school, which he refused, and 
going to ^ew York he " put out his shingle " 
at 156 Broadway, Imagine a young man, 
without experience, quiet, modest, but per- 
severing, an entire stranger in the great 
city, attempting to earn a livelihood at the 
bar. But that livelihood he did earn the very 
first year, and he is now having a lucrative 
practice. He owns an elegant home in New 
Jersey, and has educated a sister, who is now 
a successful lady physician in New York, 
noted far and wide, and a younger brother 
who is a distinguished dentist in a neighbor- 
ing state. 



198 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

In what other country on the globe could 
such a history have been possible ? But here, 
this is only one instance of success from 
small beginnings, and every town can fur- 
nish others. Boys at this day, who have 
good health and a sufficient amount of in- 
dustry and perseverance, can achieve any 
success within the reach of man. 



BOYHOOD or DR. ELIPHALET NOTT. 199 



XXI. 

THE BOYHOOD OE DR. ELIPHALET NOTT. 

T?EW subjects interest boys more than the 
boyhood of distinguished men. Few 
convey more important lessons to boys or 
men. 

Among the most noted men of our coun- 
try may be mentioned Eev. Eliphalet Nott, 
D. D., LL. D. He was born in Ashford, 
Conn., June 25, 1773, just before the be- 
ginning of the American Eevolution. He 
was graduated at Brown University, when he 
was twenty-two years of age. He was li- 
censed to preach the same year, and his 
first pastoral labors were in Cherry Valley, 
X. Y. From 1798 to 1804 he was pastor of 
a Presbyterian church in Albany. Here he 



200 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

acquired great celebrity as a pulpit orator, 
especially by a sermon on the death of Alex- 
ander Hamilton, the great statesman, who 
was shot in a duel by the noted Aaron Burr, 
Vice-President of the United States. Soon 
after this he was chosen president of Union 
College at Schenectady, which position he 
held for more than sixty years. He there- 
fore educated a large number of young- 
men, and when he had been president of the 
college for fifty years, six or eight hundred 
gentlemen, from all the walks of life, who 
had graduated under his presidency, came 
together to do him honor at the Commence- 
ment in 1854. 

He was one of the model teachers of 
America. Besides his distinction as a pul- 
pit orator and a college president, he gained 
great note by his practical inventions, espe- 
cially in the construction of stoves for 
heating buildings. By his inventions he 



BOYHOOD OF DE. ELIPHALET NOTT. 201 

acquired considerable wealth, from which he 
contributed largely to the funds of Union 
College. 

What opportunities had this justly dis- 
tinguished, truly learned, and eminently 
devout man in his boyhood ? What was the 
character of his parents ? 

His father and his mother were very ex- 
cellent Christians. They were devout, con- 
scientious, godly persons. They lived on 
a small farm of poor soil, in Southern Con- 
necticut, until a little while before the birth 
of this son, when their house was burned 
down, and, as they had not the means to 
rebuild it, they sold their farm, and with the 
proceeds bought a still poorer one, of fewer 
acres, in an extreme corner of the hill town 
of Ashford. It was four miles from the vil- 
lage and the church. During the early 
boyhood of Eliphalet his father had no horse, 
but, in bad weather, when they could not 



202 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

walk to church, the family were drawn over 
the rough and hilly roads of that long four 
miles by their only cow. Yet they were 
ahvays at church. 

During one winter, Mr. Nott's overcoat 
had become so well worn that Mrs. Nott told 
her husband it was not fit to be worn to 
church any longer. But he had no money 
to buy a new one. Should he stay away 
from divine service ? Not he ! To this 
proposition, neither he nor his good wife 
would assent. Soon, however, the good 
woman devised a plan to free them from the 
difficulty. She suggested to her husband 
that they could shear their only "cosset" 
sheep, and that the fleece would furnish wool 
enough for a new overcoat. 

"What!" says the old man, "shear the 
cosset in January ! It will freeze." 

" Ah, no, it will not," says the good wife, 
" I will see to that : the lamb shall not 
sufi*er." 



BOYHOOD OF DE. ELIPHALET NOTT. 203 

She sheared the cosset, and then wrapped 
the sheep in a blanket of burlaps, well sewed 
on, which kept it warm till its wool had 
grown again. 

This fleece Mrs. Nott carded, spun, and 
wove into cloth, then cut and made the gar- 
ment for her husband, and it was worn to 
church on the following Sahhath.* 

But Eliphalet contended not only with 
poverty, but with orphanhood. While yet 
a mere lad, he lost by death that good father, 
and also his devoted mother. The orphan 
boy then went to live with his older brother, 
the Eev. Samuel Nott, D. D., in Franklin, 
Conn. This brother had risen from poverty 
and obscurity, had fitted himself for col- 
lege, graduated at Yale when he was nearly 



* Tradition says that all this was done within one 
week's time, but for the truth of this I will not vouch. 
It would certainly seem quite improbable. 



204 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

twenty-seven years of age, received from his 
alma mater the degree of D. D. five years 
later, was settled over the church in Frank- 
lin in 1782, and held the office of pastor of 
that church till his death in 1852, a period 
of seventy years ^ the full age of man, — 
^' threescore years and ten. ''^ "Although thus 
outliving his generation," says his biogra- 
pher, " Ae was feeble and sickly when young. ''^ 

It was his son. Rev. Samuel Nott, who 
was one of that first band of missionaries 
»ent out by the American Board to India in 
1812. President Nott died in the ninety - 
third year of his age. His brother Samuel 
lived to be over ninety -eighty and the mis- 
sionary Samuel at the time of his death was 
eighty one years old. 

"I have been young and now am old," 
says the Psalmist, " yet have I not seen the 
righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging 
bread." 



BOYHOOD OF DR. ELIPHALET NOTT. 2U5 

" Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord, 
that delighteth greatly in his command- 
ments. His seed shall he mighty wpon 
earth ; the generation of the uj^right shall be 



206 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 



XXII. 

PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 

If ANY seem to think that the jpolemic age 
has passed, and that this is the period 
of deeds, not words. How strange it sounds 
that at Joseph Cook's last symposium, the 
most radical orthodox and the most radical 
extreme from orthodoxy failed to get up a 
discussion ! Let the gauntlet be thrown down 
with never so small bluster, there was no dis- 
position to pick it up. What, pray, would 
Cotton Mather, or Roget Williams, or George 
Fox, or — shalll say it — Jonathan Edwards 
or Leonard Woods have said to such a cir- 
cumstance? But the times change, and the 
people change with them. Our age has its 
faults and it has its excellences. 

If there is one lesson which it ought to 



PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 207 

learn, it is that piety and i^iglit doing should 
never be divorced. The blessed Saviour is 
our example, and " He went about doing 
good.''^ So the Christian should be distin- 
guished by the good deeds which he does. 

" Show me thy faith without thy works, 
and I will show thee my faith hy my worhs,'" 
says the Apostle James, when commenting 
upon and explaining Brother Paul's beautiful 
discourse upon the necessity oi faith as the 
cardinal Christian virtue. 

In a large New England city a few winters 
ago, a gentleman, not a church member, late 
one very cold evening stepped into an eating 
saloon to get a cup of tea. In the front part 
of the saloon, next the street door, was a 
large stove ; near this stove had gathered 
several newsboys. Nice, fresh-fried dough- 
nuts were a specialty at this particular restau- 
rant, and those which happened to be left 
over from yesterday (called stale doughnuts) 



208 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

were sold at half price, or one cent apiece. 
These boys would therefore come in, buy a 
"stale doughnut," and then, being customers, 
would feel at liberty to stop and warm by 
the stove. This o^entleman, while drinkins^ 
his tea, observed the bright, active appear- 
ance of one of these lads, who seemed to be 
the leader of the group, and calling him to 
himself, asked him if he and his companions 
would not like to have a fresh doughnut. 

''Bet I would, if I had the chink," said 
the boy. 

" Well, bring your friends up to the coun- 
ter and get one," said the gentleman. 

"Come on, boys, this Mister's going to 
treat ; draw up, all of you." 

The boys, with a rush, all mounted the 
high stools standing before the tall counter, 
and began to crack their jokes as only street 
gamins know how to do. 

The gentleman ordered the waiter to give 



PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY. 209 

each boy a cup of tea and two fresh dough- 
nuts. Imagine — if you are acquainted with 
these newsboys of the street ; otherwise you 
cannot — those six boys drawn up in front of 
that counter, each with his cup of tea before 
him and a long twisted doughnut in eacli hand, 
taking first a bite from one, then from the 
other, then laying them both down and sip- 
ping his cup of tea, lifted with both hands. 

Their feet and fingers may have been half 
frozen, but their tongues were limber, and 
the jokes went round, sparkling with genuine 
wit. After observing them for a while, and 
paying the bill, my friend bade the boys 
good night, and started towards the door. 

Just then, quick as thought, as though a 
new idea had just entered his mind, the lad, 
the leader of the boys, spoke out quick and 
sharp, " Say, Mister, do you keejo a church? " 
Obviously he knew what was meant hj ;prac- 
tical Christianity, 
14 



210 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 



XXIII. 

HABITS OF INDUSTRY. 

T HAVE given to this school many " Talks ," 
first and last, and I fear most of them 
have been designed more particularly for 
the older classes. Bat this morning I pro- 
pose to address the younger boys, and if the 
older ones find anything interesting to listen 
to they are welcome to it. I often have 
occasion to think that many boys suppose 
their education is to be received wholly 
at school. Perhaps this thought is natural 
to them, but it is not true. Your education 
is quite as much, if not more, dependent 
upon what you do, and what you learn, out 
of school as in school. The home, the 
shop, the street, the rail car are schools for 



HABITS OF INDUSTRr. 211 

you, where you may add materially to the 
stock of knowledge and mental disciplme 
which you acquire at school ; or, by a wrong 
course, you may overthrow and vitiate what 
good might otherwise be obtained from your 
school work. Let me point out one way in 
which you may improve yourselves out of 
school. 

You all need to learn to be industrious. 
You should all have some duties to do 
at home, every day. These duties should 
always be performed with care and fidelity. 
You should remember that you are indebted 
to your parents, and brothers, and sisters, 
for the comforts of life, and each should have 
a desire to help in family affairs, to have 
your little duties to perform, which you 
would attend to scrupulously and conscien- 
tiously. 

The small boy upon the farm has the 
best opportunity to learn these home lessons 



212 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

of industry. He will bring in the wood 
from the wood-house, feed the hens, water 
the horse, and in many ways make himself 
a useful member of the household. Habits 
of industry are among the most valuable 
lessons to be acquired in early youth. 

Sometimes this industry may not be needed 
in the family in the ordinary manner, but 
there may be special reasons and particular 
ways of exercising it, which will have a vast 
influence upon the future life of the boy. 
It not unfrequently happens that a boy may 
show his love to his sister or his mother by 
some skillful work, devised and executed by 
him, which will be of more service to him 
than to them. A few evenings since I was 
thinking over this subject, and a number of 
illustrations came to my mind, which I wished 
to give to you. In order that I might not 
forget them, and that I might relate them in 
the most graphic manner, I wrote them out, 



HABITS OF INDUSTEY. 213 

and now propose to read them to you. The 
first one is designed to illustrate a boy's love 
for his sister, and tells what means he found 
for carrying out his purpose of securing for 
her a new pen-knife. I was well acquainted 
with the persons mentioned in the story, and 
can vouch for the truth of it, 

I have written it, as though told by the 
sister who was a school-teacher to her school- 
boys. 

MY NEW PEN-KKIFE. 

A TRUE STORY FOR BOYS. 

Now, my dear boys, I want to tell you a 
true story. It is not one of those tales 
which claim to be "founded on fact," but, as 
I know you like truth better than fiction, my 
story shall be wholly true. 

You must know, then, that my brother 
and I were orphan children. Our dear 
father died when we were quite young. We 



214 TALKS WITH MY- BOYS. 

lived at grandfathers. We had an older 
sister, Euth, who lived with our mother. 
My brother and I loved each other dearly, 
and shared each other's joys and sorrows. 

When I was fifteen years old I began my 
life work of teaching school. It was many 
years ago, and every teacher was obliged to 
make and mend the pens for the scholars, 
for steel pens had not then come into use, 
but quills were always used for writing. It 
was necessary for me, therefore, to have a 
pen-knife. My mother bought me one, a 
cheap one, paying twelve and a half cents for 
it. The sides of the handle were made of 
horn, and were transparent. Under the 
horn was a motto, on each side. On the one 
side was the motto, — 

"A friend in need is a friend indeed." 

On the other side was the motto, — 

" Fair and softly goes far in a day." 



HABITS OF IXDUSTRY. 215 

I took my knife to our good Uncle Buf- 
fum, our great-uncle, being brother to our 
grandmother, that he might sharpen it. 

He honed it, and strapped it, and tried it 
again and again, but could not get a good 
edge upon it. He said it was "good for 
nothing ; it was soft." 

Well, my brother, who was four years 
younger than I was, sat and watched IJncle 
Buffum work away, trying in vain to get a 
good edge upon the knife. When he saw 
that the knife was not fit to make a pen with, 
he went away very sad, thinking how much 
he wished it were in his power to buy his 
dear sister a better knife. But he had no 
money. We were all poor. We lived on a 
farm four or five miles from any village. 
But, you know, boys, that where there is a 
will there is a way. One of the good mottoes 
for ambitious youth is this, — 

" Find a way or make a way." 



216 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

So my brother thought and thought upon 
the subject, till he found a way to get me a 
new knife. He caught a woodchuck, took off 
its skin, and asked his Uncle Richard to tan 
the skin for him. This was done by taking 
off the hair in wood aslies, and tlien placing 
the skin, properly prepared, in soft soap. 
After it had remained in the soap a sufficient 
length of time, it was taken out, and finally 
became a soft, nice piece of good leather. 

Then, Uncle Buffum, who was a shoemaker, 
a watchmaker, a general tinker (a most 
ingenious man), was applied to, with the 
request that from this skin he would cut out 
the strands for a whip-lasli. 

At length that was done, and my little 
brother, then between eleven and twelve 
years old, went to work to braid a long whip- 
lash, such as the farmers use in driving their 
oxen. 

It was no easy task, but the boy's love for 



HABITS or INDUSTRY. 217 

his sister triumphed, and erelong he had a 
nice whip-lash, some four feet long, all 
finished, and properly tied at the end. 

Now he waited for an opportunity to go 
to the village and sell it. Soon the time 
came when a large bag of salt was needed 
to salt the hay, which was rapidly filling the 
barn, and my brother was dispatched to the 
village to obtain it» 

Hastily running up-stairs to his room, he 
took the lash and carried it with him to the 
village store. Having purchased the salt, 
and seeing it placed in the hind end of the 
farm wagon, he tremblingly exhibited to the 
store-keeper his white, well-braided whip- 
lash, and asked him if he would buy it. 

"Where did you get it?" asked the mer- 
chant. 

" I braided it myself," said the boy. 

"Did you, indeed ! You must be a pretty 
smart boy. What do you want to buy with 
it ; some candy ? " 



218 TALKS A\^ITH MY BOYS. 

" No, sir. I want to get a first-rate pen- 
knife for my sister ; a good one, one of your 
'Rodgers, Cutlers to Her Majesty,' knives." 

So the bargain was concluded, and the 
lash was exchanged for a good, black- 
handled, Rodgers pen-knife, the price of 
which was two shillings, that is, thirty- 
three cents. 

I need not tell you how pleased my 
brother was, how many times he took that 
knife out of his pocket on the way home, to 
look at it, or how he seized the first opportu- 
nity to get Uncle Buffum to sharpen its edge. 

It was finally honed and strapped, until 
Uncle Buffum said, "There, that will cut 
like buttermilleck. It is a piece of excellent 
steel ; a first-rate knife." 

How happy was my brother, how anxious 
he was to give it to me ; and when he did 
present it, with what pride he said, — 

" There ; there is a knife that will mend a 



HABITS OF INDUSTRY. 219 

pen. It is real ^ Rodger s, Cutlers,' and you 
may throw away that old soft thing that 
mother bought. I am not going to have 
my sister mend pens with such a mean old 
knife. Here, take this ; I bought it for you ; 
it is yours." 

But I did not throw the old knife away. 
I kept it ; and I kept the other, too, as a 
precious love-token from my brother. How 
many pens I have made and mended with 
the "Eodgers " knife, I cannot tell. But 
during those years before the advent of steel 
pens, I always used it, and no other. Then I 
laid the dear knife away beside the other, 
and there the two lie today in one of my 
little pasteboard boxes in a closet. My 
dear boys, the good Apostle John said, 
" Little children, love one another." 

Thjere are but few pleasanter sights in this 
world than a family of children where love 



220 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

prevails, and where all seek the good of 
others, and show their love for one another 
by working and planning and contriving to 
make each other happy. 

I think you will agree with me that the 
story is a good one, and the spirit of it is 
worthy of imitation. 

Sometimes this habit of industry may be 
exercised by an inventive genius in devising 
ways to obtain money for general or par- 
ticular benevolent purposes. My next story 
will illustrate what I mean, in this direction. 

It is entitled — 

PIEST EARK, THEN" GIVE. 

" Papa, please give me ten cents ? " 

"Whatfor, my son?" 

"To put in the contribution-box." 

"Here is five cents ; that will do today." 

"Thank you, papa." 

And the little fellow sldpped along by his 



HABITS OF INDUSTRY. 221 

father's side, going to church one bright 
Sunday morning several years ago. 

But I could hardly listen to the sermon, 
so absorbed was I in thinking of that little 
boy. He was a bright little fellow, with 
blue eyes and curly hair, and I felt from his 
very looks and elastic step that he was a 
good boy. But I want to tell you about an- 
other little boy, who really envied him, as he 
danced along by his father's side. This little 
fellow, whose name was Henry, was on his way 
to Sunday school that same morning, when 
he met with an accident which obliged him to 
turn about and go home again. He had six 
cents in his pocket to put in the collection 
that day, to help buy new books for the 
Sabbath-school library. But his father had 
not given him the money, for he was poor. 
The Sunday school which Henry attended 
was a small one, in a little mission church, in 
the suburbs of one of our New England 



222 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

cities, and was at this time making a great 

eiFort to get an addition to its small library. 

The superintendent had told the children that 

it was far better for them to earn the money 

which they gave than to have it given to 

them by their parents. He told them of the 

little boy who collected a good sum of money 

for the missionaries by carrying around 

among his friends an ox's horn, with the 

large end plugged up and a slit in it where 

the money could be dropped in, which was 

labeled, — 

" Once I was the iiorn of an ox, 
But now I am a missionary box." 

He advised the boys and girls to try to 
earn the money they brought, and gave some 
suggestions how it could be done. I do not 
know how many, if any, followed those 
suggestions ; but I do know that some of 
them invented plans of their own, and earned 
the money, and contributed liberally for that 



HABITS OF INDUSTRY. 223 

library. Let me tell you how some of the 
boys did it. 

Hemy was a small boy, only six years old. 
He could not do many kinds of work. In- 
deed he could not think for some time of 
any way by which he could earn a penny. 
At last, he thought of his way, and during 
the week preceding the Sunday of which 
I have spoken he put his plan in practice. 

He went around the neighborhood, through 
the streets and open lots, and picked up 
every bone and every piece of paper that he 
saw, and on Saturday sold them to the junk 
dealer, by which he earned six cents. This 
money he was carrying to the Sunday school 
when he overheard the little blue-eyed boy 
asking his father for the ten cents. When 
his father gave him only five, Henry smiled, 
and thought to himself, " Well, I have more 
than he, and I have earned mine; it was not 
given to me." I am sorry to say that just 



224 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

then Henry stepped into a hole in the side- 
walk, and sprained his ankle so badly that 
he could not get to Sunday school, hut was 
obliged to go home. Yet, even in his pain, 
he was not to be deprived of the pleasure of 
giving the money he had earned, and so sent 
it along by his sister. 

Now let me tell 3^ou of another boy, who 
wanted to earn some money for that library. 
He found another plan. He was a little fel- 
low of about eight years, and his name was 
Eddie. His mother was a widow, and earned 
a scanty support for herself and her children 
by sewing. Eddie asked his mother to give 
him some money for the library, and she was 
obliged to tell him she had none. At first 
Eddie felt very badly, but after a while he 
began to think whether there was any way 
for Mm to earn something. Across the half- 
graded street from the little cottage where 
his mother lived was an open field, then 



HABITS OF INDUSTRY. 225 

thickly covered with those large, round, 
white and yellow daisies. These flowers 
he picked, and carried them to an herb 
store, and sold them for four cents a pound. 
Afterwards he and his brother Georgie 
picked red clover blossoms, and sold them 
at two cents a pound, and then white clover 
blossoms ntjlve cents a pound. I think these 
two little boys earned in a few weeks more 
than a dollar and a half in this way, which 
they contributed toward buying those new 
books. But I must tell you what one other 
little boy of about eight years did. His 
name was Walter. He wanted to do some- 
thing for the library, and, as he could think 
of nothing by which he could earn money 
immediately, he invented the following plan : 
His father had a little garden, and had al- 
lowed him to plant in a small bed whatever 
he chose. Singularly enough he had chosen 
to plant a bed of citrons. These he weeded 
15 



226 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

and hoed, and watched and watered, until in 
the fall he found daily ripening a goodly 
number of nice citrons. When they were 
fully ripe he inquired at the stores the price 
of citrons, and then, placing his price some- 
what lower than the market value, he carried 
his citrons about the neighborhood upon his 
little cart, and sold them all, and handed in 
the money to the Sunday school for the 
library fund. If I remember correctly, he 
secured somethins: over two dollars. 

I have indicated to you by these stories 
some ways in which boys have earned money 
for good purposes. Though you may not, 
and probably could not, do exactly tlie same 
thing, yet as these boys invented ways of 
doing what they desired to do, so I think, if 
you have the desire^ you also will invent a 
way of accomplishing your desire. " Where 
there is a will there is a way." " Find a way 
or make a way." 



A LESSON FROM HISTORY. 227 



XXIV. 

A LESSON FROM HISTORY. 

T?EW boys in school appear to be fond of 
the study of history. They not infre- 
quently call it dull and dry. Sometimes 
they are inclined to get excused from the 
study. A few years later in life, when they 
have a mc^re mature judgment, they usually 
form a much higher idea of its value, and 
find it more interestino^ and instructive. 
But should the principle of elective studies, 
now so popular at Harvard, reach the upper 
classes in the grammar schools, history, it is 
to be feared, would soon be left in a hope- 
less minority. 

When, however, boys are permitted to 
omit the study of history, and pay but little 



228 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

atteDtion to the subject till they are past 
sixteen or eighteen years of age, they sel- 
dom recover what they have lost. During 
all their subsequent lives they never cease to 
regret that they neglected the opportunity, 
when their memories were fresh and active, 
to become familiar with the general outlines 
and the main facts of history. There is " no 
lamp by which our feet may be guided but 
the lamp of experience." "What man has 
done, man may do." Yet the experience of 
the human race is what we call history. 
" What man has done " is recorded on the 
pages of history. 

Let me this morning present to you some 
unique illustrations from history, somewhat 
out of the ordinary channels of thought, it 
may be, but which I hope will show not 
only that all the world are wonderfully de- 
pendent upon one another, but also that 
what may seem to be remote and inconse- 



A LESSON FEOM HISTORY. 229 

quential are in reality more clearly con- 
nected to us and to our interests than at first 
would appear. 

Every one knows how impossible it is for 
any one, at this day of general travel and 
intercommunication between all nations, to 
hide himself and remain unknown in any part 
of the world. A man having committed a 
crime in Boston may seek concealment in a 
remote state of South America ; but it will 
not be long before some one who formerly 
knew him will step in, recognize him, and 
call him by his former name. Bank officers 
are said to go to Canada, sometimes, but it 
is not because they can be hidden there. 
Mutineers upon the high seas can now find 
no land under the sun whither they can flee 
and be unknown. 

Neither could one escape from his friends, 
if, for any reason, he should conceive the 
desire to do so. Even the boys ft'om this 



230 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

school can scarcely find a spot where they 
will not meet some former schoolmate. 
Last summer a graduate of this school was 
spending a day in Kansas City, and while 
there he met four other graduates, all of 
whom were living in the immediate vicinity. 

But not only are all countries interlocked 
and intertwined one with another, so that it 
is important to be intimately acquainted 
with the present condition of the whole 
world, but the ages are more closely con- 
nected than one might suppose, which makes 
a knowledge of all races and all times a ne- 
cessity, in order to do business the most 
successfully. 

" Light Horse Harry " Lee was a conspic- 
uous figure in the Revolutionary War, and 
that was more than a hundred years ago. 
Yet his own son was the most prominent 
officer in the army of the South, during the 
late Rebellion. But to a casual observei'. 



A LESSON FROM HISTORY. 231 

who has not made a close study, of history, 
the period of the Eevolution would appear to 
be several generations back of Secession and 
the Confederacy. 

It frequently seems, to one who has not 
carefully studied and reflected upon the his- 
tory of this country, that the age of the Pil- 
grims and the Puritans, the first settlers in 
!N"ew England, was generations and genera- 
tions ago. My great-grandfather's great- 
grandfather was contemporary with Roger 
Williams, and Miles Standish, and Governor 
Winthrop ; yet it is true, in a certain sense, 
that there is but one link between our time 
and the period of those old pioneers. A 
person born, say in 1720, could have con- 
versed with old people who had been in their 
younger days acquainted with the early set- 
tlers, and they in turn, living to be eighty 
or ninety years of age, would reach down 
into the period of those who, born perhaps 



232 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

in 1800 or 1810, are still living to tell us the 
anecdotes of their childhood. In 1872 I 
heard an aged lady, then a hundred years 
old, tell what happened " the year the war 
broke out"; that is, in 1775, ninety-seven 
years before. Thus it may be said that but 
a single generation stands between the first 
settlers of New England the and people of 
today. So, reckoning the space of one life 
as eighty years, we find that there are but 
three linl^s between our period and the time 
of Columbus and Luther, Henry YIII. and 
Tyndale, and the introduction of knives and 
forks for table use. 

If this is not at first apparent, I pray you 
to reflect that the age of which I speak was 
substantially four centuries ago ; that it 
reached forward eighty years ; that our 
own age may be regarded as reaching back- 
ward eighty years ; and that two periods of 
eighty years taken from four hundred, leave 



A LESSON FROM HISTORY. 233 

but three periods of eighty years between 
them. 

And from the beginning of the Christian 
era, when Christ and Caesar, Virgil and 
Pompey, Cicero and Josephus, and Paul and 
Peter were fulfilling their earthly destiny, 
but twenty-two or twenty-three of our life- 
time periods of eighty years have intervened, 
and seventy-five such ages will carry us back 
to the Garden of Eden, and we can interview 
our first parents, Adam and Eve. 

I do not mean to be understood that the 
persons just named as belonging to the time 
of Christ were exactly contemporary with 
each other, but only as living near the same 
period. Cicero and Yirgilwere a generation 
before Christ, and Paul and Josephus came 
into the generation following. 

An old tradition has come down to us to 
the effect that Paul, on his way to Eome, 
when he had appealed to Cassar, being de- 



234 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

layed at Puteoli, went up to the hill Pan- 
silipo to shed a tear over the tomb of Virgil, 
and thought how much he might have made 
of that noble soul if he had but found 
him still on earth. An old Latin hymn 
is still extant, which tells the incident in 
this way : — 

" Ad Maronis mausoleum 
Ductus, fudit super eum 
Piae rorem lacrymae : 
Quantum, dixit, te fecissem, 
Si te vivum invenissem, 
Poetarum maxime! " 

The condensed phraseology of the verse 
scarce admits a literal translation of its 
touching thought, but I find in an old book 
a free paraphrase, which will give quite a 
clear idea of the force of the orio^inal : — 

" Ou his way to ISTero's Court, 
When at Puteoli's port. 
At the tomb where Yirgil slept, 
Paul, in thoughtful sadness, wept; 



A LESSON FEOM HISTORY. 235 

Wept, that he of world-wide fame 
Should have died ere Jesus camel 
In his musings, unexpressed. 
This the thought that swelled his breast: 
' Oh! that I had found thee living 
In the light the Cross is giving; 
Could have seen thee, from above 
Taught to know a Saviour's love; 
Then, with love to Christ supreme, 
Thine had been a nobler theme ; 
And thy harp, in loftiest lays, 
Down the ages rolled His praise! ' 



Thoughtful and sad, Paul from the hill went 

down 
To Kome, to prison, to a heavenly crown." 

We must confess that it is not common 
thus to couple the names of Virgil and Paul 
together, as though there was a bond of 
sympathy between them, but Paul would 
adopt the sentiment of that famous Latin 
motto, — 

" Humani nihil alienum.''^ 

One of the most striking pictures presented 



236 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

by that gifted author, J. T. Headley, in his 
"Sacred Mountains," is the contrast that he 
makes in regard to Mount Tabor. He speaks 
of the "contrasts of earth," and likens our 
world to a "middle spot between heaven and 
hell," which partakes of the character of 
both. "The glory from the one and the 
midniofht shades from the other meet alonsr 
its bosom, and the song of angels and the 
shriek of fiends go up from the same spot. 
Noonday and midnight are not more opposite 
than the scenes that are constantly passing 
before our eyes." "Truth and falsehood walk 
side by side through our streets, and vice 
and virtue meet and pass every hour of the 
day." 

" It was a bright spring morning. A form 
was seen standing on Mount Tabor. He sat 
on his steed in the clear sunlight, his eye 
resting on a scene in the vale below, which 
was sublime and appalling enough to quicken 



A LESSON FROM HISTORY. 237 

the pulsations of the calmest heart. That 
form was Napoleon Bonaparte, and the scene 
before him the fierce and terrible battle of 
Mount Tabor." 

"Amid the twenty-seven thousand Turks 
that crowded the plain and enveloped their 
enemy like a cloud, and amid the incessant 
discharge of artillery and musketry, Napo- 
leon could tell where his own brave troops 
were struggling only by the steady, simul- 
taneous volleys, which showed how discipline 
was contending with the wild valor of over- 
powering numbers." " Thrown into confusion 
and trampled under foot, that mighty army 
rolled turbulently back toward the Jordan, 
where Murat was anxiously waiting to min- 
gle in the fight. Dashing with his cavalry 
among the disordered ranks, he sabered them 
down without mercy, and raged like a lion 
amid his prey. This chivalric and romantic 
warrior declared that the remembrance of 



238 TALKS ^^TH MY BOYS. 

the scenes that once transpired on Mount 
Tabor, and on those thrice-consecrated spots, 
came to him in the hottest of the fight and 
nerved him with tenfold courage ." " Roll back 
the centuries, and again view that hill. The 
day is bright and beautiful as then, and the 
same rich. Oriental landscape is smiling in 
the light of the same sun. There is Mount 
Tabor, the same on which Bonaparte stood 
with his cannon ; and the same beautiful 
plain, where rolled the smoke of battle, and 
where struggled thirty thousand men in mor- 
tal combat. But how different is the scene 
that is passing there ! The Son of God 
stands on that height and casts his eye over 
the quiet valley through which Jordan winds 
its silver current. Three friends are beside 
him. Far away to the northwest shines the 
blue Mediterranean ; all around is the great 
plain of Esdrelon and Galilee ; eastward, 
the lake of Tiberias dots the landscape, while 



A LESSON FEOM HISTORY. 239 

Mount Carmel lifts its naked summit in the 
distance. But the glorious landscape at their 
feet is forgotten in a sublimer scene that is 
passing before them. The Son of Mary — 
the carpenter of Nazareth — begins to change 
before their eyes. Heaven has poured its 
brightness over that consecrated spot, and 
on the beams of light which glitter there, 
Moses and Elias have descended, and, 
wrapped in the same shining vestments, 
stand beside him." 

Then follows a minute and wonderfully 
graphic picture of the transfiguration, end- 
ing with the mysterious voice in the words, 
"This is my beloved Son, in whom I am 
well pleased ; hear ye him." 

" Can there be a stranger contrast than the 
battle and the transfiguration upon Mount 
Tabor ? One shudders to think of Bonaparte 
and the Son of God on the same mountain ; 
one with his wasting cannon by his side, and 



240 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

the other with Moses and Elias just from 
Heaven." 

But you say the two scenes are separated 
by eighteen centuries. What are eighteen 
centuries but a moment of time only ? Time 
is measured not by seconds and centuries, 
but by deeds. Actions are the hour-strokes, 
and annual marks, and century records of the 
world. Cause and effect and motives are the 
criteria by which the deeds of this world are 
to be judged. " Time's effacing fingers " act 
onl}^ on the physical world, and not on the 
mental and moral world. In that realm time 
is nothing. It can neither add to nor take 
from the actions of our race ; it is by them 
that individuals and nations are to be judged. 
What study, then, can be more vital in in- 
terest, more attractive in material, or more 
fruitful in utility than the study of the annals 
of mankind ? It puts vitality and an enthu- 
siastic glow of transfigured interest and mean- 



A LESSON FEOM HISTORY. 241 

ing into all subjects which come before the 
mind for consideration. Have pity for the 
boor of whom Wordsworth says, — 

" A primrose by the river's brim 
A yellow primrose was to Mm, 
And it was nothing more." 

But fill your own souls with such a knowl- 
edge of this world's contents that your vision 
can see more than the "yellow primrose," 
when you look upon the little modest flower 
" by the river's brim." And remember that 
the world's knowledge is divided into two 
grand divisions, neitlier of which can be 
omitted without serious loss, — the realm of 
nature and the realm of humanity. Were 
either to be slighted, it surely should not be 
humanity, or the history of mankind. Na- 
ture itself would be sorely deficient and in- 
complete without the crowning work of the 
creation, — man. If then we can "look 
through nature up to nature's God," sui'ely 
16 



242 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

much more and with far greater ease may we 
in the history of the human race, its aspira- 
tions, its failures, and its triumphs, see the 
ladder that Jacob saw, which reaches upward 
to the celestial land where Grod abides, and 
where his throne is fixed. 



WHAT GEOMETEY WILL DO FOR A BOY. 243 



XXV. 

WHAT GEOMETRY WILL DO FOR A BOY. — 
HOW PRESIDENT LINCOLN BECAME AN 
EXPERT REASONER. 

AjOW, boys, let us have a little talk about 
geometry. You know it has been a 
famous study for boys for many ages. Euclid 
was an old Egyptian, who lived about three 
hundred years before Christ. His treatise 
on geometry has been the foundation for all 
modern works upon the subject. Plato, who 
lived a century earlier, founded a noted acad- 
emy at Athens, and it is related that over its 
entrance he placed this celebrated inscription, 
Let no one ignorant of geometry enter here. 

This branch has been considered an impor- 
tant part of a good education for two thou- 
sand years. Yet I hear many boys in these 



244 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

days saying, "I don't like geometry. I 
wonder what good it will do me." 

I once heard a very interesting story about 
Abraham Lincoln, which may help you to 
understand the "good." Before Mr. Lincoln 
was a candidate for President, he made a tour 
through New England, and lectured in many 
cities and towns. Among other places, he 
spoke in Norwich, Ct. A gentleman who 
heard him, and was struck with his remark- 
able logical power, rode the next day in the 
cars with Mr. Lincoln to New Haven. Dur- 
ing the ride, the following conversation took 
place : — 

"Mr. Lincoln, I was delighted with your 
lecture last evening." 

" Oh, thank you ; but that was not much 
of a lecture ; I can do better than that." 

" I have no doubt of it, Mr. Lincoln ; for 
whoever can do so well, must inevitably be 
able to do better." 



WHAT GEOMETRY WILL DO FOR A BOY. 245 

"Well, well, you are a good reasoner, 
are n't you? That is cute." 

"But that reminds me," continued the gen- 
tleman, " to ask how you acquired your won- 
derful logical power. I have heard that you 
are entirely self-educated, and it is seldom 
that I find a self-educated man who has a 
good system of logic in his reasoning. How 
did you acquire such an acute power of 
analysis ? " 

"Well, Mr. G., I will tell you. It was 
my terrible discouragement which did that 
for me." 

" Your discouragement : what do you 
mean ? " 

"You see," said Mr. Lincoln in reply, 
"when I was a young man I went into an 
office to study law. Well, after a little 
while I saw that a lawyer's business was 
largely to prove things. And I said to 
myself, * Lincoln, when is a thing proved?' 



246 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

That was a poser. I could not answer the 
question. What constitutes ^roo/*.^ Not evi- 
dence ; that was not the point. There may 
be evidence enough, but wherein consists the 
proofs 

" You remember the old story of the Ger- 
man, who was tried for some crime, and they 
brought half a dozen respectable men who 
swore that they saw the prisoner commit the 
crime. ' Yell,' he replies, ^ vat of dot? Six 
men schwears dot dey saw me do it. I 
prings more nor two tozen goot men who 
schwears dey did not see me do it.' 

" So, wherein is the proof? I groaned over 
the question, and finally said to myself, 
'Ah, Lincoln, you can't tell.' Then I 
thought, ' What use is it for me to be in 
a law office if I can't tell when a thing is 
proved? ' So I gave it up and left the office, 
and went back home, over in Kentucky." 

" So you gave up the law ? " 



WHAT GEOMETRY WILL DO FOR A BOY. 247 

"Oh, Mr. G., don't jump at your conclu- 
sions ; that is n't logical. But really I did 
give up the law, and I thought I should never 
go back to it. This was in the fall of the 
year. Soon after I returned to the old log- 
cabin, I fell in with a copy of Euclid. I had 
not the slightest notion what Euclid was, and 
I thought I would find out. I found out ; but 
it was no easy job. I looked into the book 
and found it was all about lines, angles, sur- 
faces, and solids ; but I could not understand 
it at all. I therefore began, very deliber- 
ately, at the beginning ; I learned the defini- 
tions and axioms ; I demonstrated the first 
proposition ; I said, that is simple enough ; 
I went on to the next and the next ; and 
before spring I had gone through that old 
Euclid's geometry, and could demonstrate 
every proposition like a book. 

"I knew it all from beginning to end. 
You could not stick me on the hardest of 



248 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

them. Then, in the spring, when I had got 
through with it, I said to myself one day, 
' Ah, do you know now when a thing is 
proved?' And I answered right out loud, 
' Yes, sir, I do.' ' Then you may go back to 
the law shop ' ; and I went." 

" Thank, you, Mr. Lincoln, for that story. 
You have answered my question. I see now 
where you found your logical acumen ; you 
dug it out of that geometry." 

"Yes, I did; often by the light of pitch- 
pine knots ; but I got it. N^othing but 
geometry will teach you the power of ab- 
stract reasoning. Only that will tell you 
when a thing is proved." 

Said Mr. G. , " I think this is a remarkable 
incident. How few men Would have thought 
to ask themselves the question, When is a 
thing proved ? What constitutes proof? And 
how few young men of today would be 
able to master the whole of Euclid in a 



WHAT GEOMETRY WILL DO FOR A BOY. 249 

single winter, without a teacher. And still 
fewer, after they, had done so much, would 
have realized and acknowledged what geom- 
etry had done for them ; that it had told 
them what proof was." 

So, my young friends, you may perhaps 
see by this incident what geometry will do 
for a boy. 



250 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 



XXVI. 

THE FALL OF RICHMOND. 

Note. — Richmond was evacuated by the Confederates 
on Sunday, April 2, 18G5. The next day, Monday, tlie 
Union troops took possession of the city. Some time 
before, my pupils liad asked for a holiday to celebrate 
some minor Federal victory. I told them that that 
victory hardly warranted a holiday for the school, but 
when Richmond was captured they should celebrate it 
by a holiday. On Monday morning, therefore, April 
3, 1865, the boys, en masse, asked for a holiday. The 
request was granted ; but as we were already assembled, 
it was thought best to have a short session, with 
brief exercises, appropriate to the occasion. It was at 
that time and under those circumstances that the fol- 
lowing talk was given to the boys. 

T^HE newspapers inform us that the Federal 
army is now in possession of Eichmond, 
the capitol of the Confederate States of 
America. Practically this must prove to be 
the beginning of the end. The close of this 



THE FALL OF EICHMOND. 251 

civil war is at hand. Thank God for that. 
It is high time the fratricidal contest was 
terminated. So far as it has been a contest 
between free labor and slave labor, the South 
will lose ; for slavery will not survive the 
overthrow of the Confederacy. And to a 
large extent slavery is at the bottom of the 
whole difficulty. Ever since the beginning 
of the Federal government the balance of 
power has been carefully guarded in the 
United States senate. Prior to 1800 three 
new states had been added to the original 
thirteen, — New Hampshire, Kentucky, and 
Tennessee. This made eight free states and 
eight slave states. Then Ohio and Louis- 
iana being admitted left the condition the 
same, nine states on each side. Then Indi- 
ana and Mississippi were admitted, then 
Illinois and Alabama, then Maine and Mis- 
souri. But not till after the vigorous strife 
which resulted in the Missouri Compromise. 



252 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

Then followed Arkansas and Michigan, 
Florida and Iowa, Texas and Wisconsin, and 
the spell was broken in 1850 by California 
choosing for herself a free constitution, 
when, from her latitude, it had been sup- 
posed she would make a slave state. 

Even the annexation of Texas, and the 
conquest and purchase of Northern Mexico, 
failed to help the slave power. It was 
doomed. 

When the war broke out four years ago, 
no one dreamed what was before this nation. 
I well remember dismissinof school and sroing 
down to the wharf to see the first Rhode 
Island regiment embark upon the boat that 
took them to the scene of conflict. On my 
return a friend said to me, "When do you 
propose to enlist?" I replied, " Oh, I don't 
know, I think I shall go in the fifth regi- 
ment." Little did any one that day suppose 
that this little State would be called upon to 



THE FALL OF RICHMOND. 253 

send five regiments into the field, not to say 
ten regiments of infantry, a regiment of 
light batteries and two or three regiments of 
cavalry. Even Secretary of State Seward 
thought that ninety days would finish the 
war. But his former utterance was the true 
one, when he characterized the anti-slavery 
struggle as " The irrepressible conflict." 
Slowly but steadily the slave power had 
become more and more aggressive, and more 
and more determined to rule the nation or to 
destroy it. That power culminated in the 
administration of President Buchanan, and 
upon the election of Abraham Lincoln the 
moment had come for the blow to be struck. 
But the change of administration had brought 
with it an entire change of policy for the 
nation. 

During Mr. Buchanan's term, the mint is- 
sued that small copper cent alloyed with 
nickel, with the hideous looking flying bird 



254 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

Oil one side of it. It was this coin that 
Theodore Parker characterized as follows : 
" The government has become so corrupt that 
it has erased the word liberty from the coins 
of the comitry, taken away the eagle, the 
emblem of freedom, and substituted instead 
thereof an ill-looTcing , ravenous vulture. ^^ 
But one of the first coins issued by Secrie- 
tary Chase, under President Lincoln, was 
the two-cent piece, which bore as a motto, 
" In God we Trust.'' It is believed that this 
was the first time in the history of our land 
that a religious motto appeared upon any 
coin issued by the national mint. This 
change seemed to be an agreeable augury of 
the altered character of the nation in its 
aims and its aspirations. 

The war is now, in all probability, sub- 
stantially ended. For four years the cry has 
been, " On to Richmond " ; but there seemed 
to be a fatality preventing Union soldiers 



THE FALL OF RICHMOND. 255 

from getting into that city, except as pris- 
oners of war. Now that the capital o± the 
Confederacy which established itself upon the 
corner-stone of human slavery has fallen, the 
army will not long withstand the steady 
march of Sherman, and the heavy poundings 
of Grant. 

The abolition of slavery, which was a war 
measure, by proclamation of the President, 
must be enforced by a constitutional amend- 
ment. Surely, the conflict was "irrepres- 
sible," and the two systems of free labor and 
slave service could not abide under one gov- 
ernment. The one or the other must give 
way. Thank God, it was not the former. 
Well may we say with the great poet, — 

"Let truth and falsehood grapple; 
Wlio ever knew truth put to the worse 
In fair and open conflict." 

But what next ? First a breathing spell ; 
then recuperation and mutual forbearance, 



256 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

forgiveness, and reconciliation. And then, 
what? Then progress, progress, progress, 
more rapid than the nation has ever yet 
seen. The upbuilding of the impoverished 
South, the education and elevation of the 
freedmen, the introduction of manufacturing 
into that section ; the pushing of the west- 
ern frontier farther and farther till it meets 
the " Great South Sea," and there the great 
Republic will find its western limit. 

If this gigantic attempt to divide the na- 
tion upon lines of latitude, with the rebel- 
lious section upheld by such a powerful 
motive as the retention and propagation of 
slavery ; if this great rebellion with its 
isnmense strength has failed, we may well 
feel assured that, hereafter, no attempt will 
be made to divide the nation either by lines 
latitudinal or longitudinal, and the prophecy 
of that famous Rhode-Islander* will be quite 

* Thomas W. Dorr, in 1853. 



THE FALL OF EICHMOND. 257 

likely to prove true, that the stars and 
stripes will yet float from sea to sea, and 
from the gulf to the pole. 

And now, my young friends, I heartily 
congratulate you upon your good fortune in 
" coming to the kingdom at such a time as 
this " ; that you are just about to enter the 
arena of active life at a time when the nation 
is evidently establishing itself upon a firmer 
foundation than ever before, and command- 
ing a higher respect from all nations than 
hitherto. Republican institutions will take 
a new lease of life, the speedy downfall of 
monarchies and oligarchies may be pre- 
dicted, and the " glory of the Lord shall be 
revealed, and all flesh shall see it together." 

And now I counsel you to rise to the dig- 
nity of the situation. Remember the direc- 
tion of the great apostle, when he encour- 
aged his brethren, "Quit you like men; be 
strong." So I say to you, "Quit you like 

17 



258 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

men, be strong" ; see to it " that the Eepub- 
lic receives no detriment." The next gen- 
eration will see wondrous things ; a more 
rapid development of the arts and sciences 
by this nation than has ever before been 
witnessed by any people on earth. 

I hope you will heartily enjoy your holiday 
today, and may it be a day you will have 
occasion to remember as long as you live. 



THE END OF THE YEAR. 259 



xxvn. 

THE END OF THE YEAR. 

^HE year is drawing to a close. Our 
evenings are lighted by its last new 
moon. The morning of the year, with its 
sweet perfume of buds and flowers, its 
bright and luxurious foliage, and the melo- 
dious songs of the birds, came and went with 
its usual rapidity. The noonday sun of 
summer poured his life-giving beams upon 
us and upon all nature, but as quickly was 
l^ast. Autumn then, sable Autumn, with 
its fruits and rich harvests, paid us a visit, 
just looking in at our doors, merely glancing 
at us to see if the children had had their sup- 
pers, and the cattle were well fed for the 
night ; if the crib were locked and the 



260 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

rose-bush covered up to protect it from the 
frost. Autumn, too, is gone, and now we 
are left to the cold mercies of bleak and 
rigid Winter. He is now here, and although 
occasionally his face is lighted up with a 
warm and genial smile, he cannot avoid 
showing the coldness of his natural disposi- 
tion, and the chilling influence of his breath 
has been observed on every hand. We all 
button up our coats as if some thief or pick- 
pocket were around, and we were afraid of 
losing our pocket-books. 

But even cold winter has its pleasures. 
Sometimes we think they outnumber and 
outweigh those of either of the other sea- 
sons. We have our Thanksgiving just at 
the threshold of winter, as if to usher in the 
coming season of pleasure. Then following 
close upon it are Christmas and New- Year's, 
making the trio of ever-to-be-remembered 
festivals of our glorious New England winter. 



THE END OF THE YEAR. 261 

The boys have the fun of coasting and 
skating, in which, of late years, the girls fre- 
quently join ; and the girls have the pleasure 
of parties and social gatherings, to which, of 
course, the boys are invited; the men have 
their daily papers, with the proceedings of 
Congress, often exciting if not always ele- 
vating and beneficial, and promising a full 
share of interest to all parties the present 
season. 

The winter schools, with all their excite- 
ments, and pleasures, and profit, flourish at 
this period; the lectures, the libraries, and 
last, but not least, the periodical literature, 
including the educational journals. In fact, 
we may say, like the people of California, 
we have but two seasons ; not, however, 
like theirs, the wet and the dry, but the 
reading and the labor season. 

Now, what I wish to say, although I 
have been a long time getting at it^ is that 



262 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

I wish you all a merry "Merry Christ- 
mas," and a hearty " Happy New Year." 
" Christmas is coming," and then, before we 
fairly wake up to the fact that it has come 
and gone, we hear each happy boy calling 
out to us, "A happy New Year." 

Let the year close with thankfulness for 
its unnumbered blessings, with regrets for 
its many shortcomings, with hearty and 
strong resolutions for better thino^s durinoj 
the New Year ; and then let us carry out all 
our good resolutions. 

I have laid away in one of the drawers of 
my memory, bright recollections of the 
"Coronation of Winter," which came at 
Christmas and lasted till the mornmg of the 
New Year. It was a sight never to be lost 
from one's memory. 

The old elms were bowed with the weight 
of the silver sheen, all ccwered with sparkling 
gems, swords, and spears, and swaying seep- 



THE END OF THE YEAR. 263 

ters , fantastic shapes , and rainbow hues . That 
brilliant scene, with tree and shrub and house 
and fence and everything within sight cov- 
ered with ice, suggested the following lines : 

A CHEISTMAS SCENE. 

All day the air was keen and sharp and cold; 
All night the rain came rattling on the roof, 
And on the trees and on the frozen gro-und; 
And wheresoe'er it touched, 't was frozen fast. 
The morning dawned! the clouds had passed away; 
The sun came forth and shone with dazzling light, 
When all around, both near and far away. 
One saw, in truth, a brilliant, beauteous sight! 
Each roof was glazed, the pavement coated o'er, 
And every tree and shrub and stalk of last year's 

growth. 
Which Autumn's chilling hand had naked stripped. 
And, unprotected, left to winter's blast. 
Was now well clothed in sparkling armor bright! 
From every roof and tower, from spire and dome ; 
From every tree, whose waving branches bent 
Beneath the ponderous load of polished mail; 
From every spire of grass that upright stood; 



264 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

From all around and o'er the country wide, 

In rainbow hues the sparkling light was sent 

In ever varying, ever twinkling rays. 

Here brilliant diamonds, in E'ature's casket set; 

There gleaming swords in bristling sheaths en- 
cased. 

Until the whole, so gorgeous and so bright, 

Seemed more like Heaven than sin-stained, fallen 
earth. 

Along the streets the crowds are hastening fast, 
Or, pausing here and there in thoughtful mood, 
To indulge the beauty of th' enchanting scene, 
Or comment on the wondrous, sparkling hues. 

A man of wealth, in crossing o'er the street, 
Observes the silvery appearance of the sleet, 
And fain would wish that all this icy crest 
Were so much cf argent in his money chest. 

A misanthrope next passes, on his way 
To 'Change, to while away the gloomy day; 
He sadly grumbles at " the sheer disguise. 
Mere outside show, to cheat one's longing eyes." 

We next observe, enchanted by the scene, 
A beauteous girl, whose age is just sixteen, 
Who dares to wish this gorgeous ice had been 
Pearls and bracelets to deck her person in. 



THE END OF THE YEAR. 2(^5 

A school-boy next, upon his way to school, 
Just stops and thinks, — but not about his rule, — 
List now! He says: "Would all that icy tree 
Were so much candy, Jim, for you and me." 

With slow and pensive pace, a farmer see, 
Muttering that this will spoil full many a tree, 
Which now has borne for more than twenty years, 
His greenings, Baldwins, peaches, and his pears. 

That wretched miser thinks of naught but gold, 
And clutching in his hand a diamond, icy cold, 
He almost thinks it 's so much silver coin, 
But when he opes his hand, behold, 'tis gone. 

Now comes a Christian, hastening up the street, 
On deed of mercy bent, with willing feet; 
His glistening eye, expressing peace within, 
Drinks in with glowing rapture all the scene. 

'T is he alone enjoys the beauteous crown 

Of lointer, and the diamonds scattered 'round; 

'T is he alone who shows by deed or word 

He " looks through nature up to nature's God." 

Desiring not the transient wealth of earth. 
He sees around him more than silver's worth; 
He calls not so much beauty "mere disguise," 
Nor thinks of "gaudy pearls " to mock the eyes. 



266 TALKS WITH MY BOYS. 

No school-boy's foolish wish disturbs his breast; 
And since he knows "whatever is, is best," 
No silly fears for want of "next year's fruit " 
Disturbs his peaceful mind, and makes him mute. 

The wretched miser^s curse aftects him not; 
Although he 's rich in all the world has got, 
He ever strives to bless and honor God, 
And spends his wealth and life in doing good. 

The Christian man alone enjoys the scene! 
With sinless eye and naught of guile within, 
He thanks his God for such a glorious sight, 
And prays for strength to do his duty right. 



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